Blank Check with Griffin & David - In the Blink of an Eye with Joey Sims

Episode Date: July 26, 2026

Did you know that Andrew Stanton released TWO movies this year? Toy Story 5, of course, but also the centuries-spanning sci-fi yarn In the Blink of an Eye?! This episode is dedicated to the latter - kind of. Theater critic and brother of the show Joey Sims joins us to chat about a BUNCH of things, not limited to In The Blink of an Eye; Off-Broadway plays, caveman movies, Power Rangers, and the status of the Lost in Space IP. It's a tangent-heavy listen, folks. Listen to Joey’s Pod: House Closed: Theater We Saw Read about how Off-Broadway's PERFECT CRIME and THE OFFICE halted performances due to theft of pipes at the theatre Check out the Hayden Planetarium at the New York Museum of Natural History  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

All we share and all we experience. Podcasts across time. Echoes across time is the tagline. I'm surprised there's no IMDB quote page for what I believe holds the record for the most existent film of 2026. This is a fun recurring game when I tell people... Like movie that least exists that we've covered?

No, no, no, no. Oh, you tell people that we're covering... What are you guys recording these days? Oh, we're actually doing Anderson. Oh, that's exciting. So wait, so it's what? So it's Finding Nemo and Wally, right, John Carter. Oh, right.

And then what, since then? And I go, finding Dory. And they go, sure, sure. And in the blink of an eye. And they go, what's that? In the what of a what? Right. And I go, he made like a smaller live action,

sci-fi, we are all connected drama. And they go, what year did that come out? And I go, well, here's a surprise for you. In fact, mere months ago. It premiered at this year's Sunday. Film Festival. Heard of it. And went on Hulu, February 27th of 2026.

Yep. I found myself taken aback all over again, literally last night, when I looked it up on Wikipedia. I was just like checking something. And at the top, it said 2026. And I, again, had a renewed moment of like, wait, that can be right. That's this year. It's not even a, oh, my God, this year's been so long that in the blink of an eye was 2026. You know, in some ways, this year.

kind of gone past me in the blink of an eye. Well, actually, is this the most relevant movie of 2026? Because of how fast things move. Oh, so fast. Yeah. February...

Yeah, yeah, it came out, and I rushed to Hulu, and then I was like, well, I'm gonna cover it on the podcast anyway. So I guess I'll let it simmer. Ben and I were supposed to go to the premiere of this film in New York City that did not happen because of the snowstorms.

storm. Oh, that's right. So it was like, it premiered at Sundance and then there was supposed to be... The cowardice closed the subways. The proper New York premiere. What, 20 inches of snow? What's the big deal? The following week. And it was like six hours before the premiere we got an email that was like, never mind. Yeah. The Regal Union Square is closing. The event is not happening. Fun fact, on the same day, if we're talking about the same weather event, because there were two. Yeah, that's true. But on the same day, I was... supposed to attend a marathon play reading session of the five, I think it was five different works of the playwrights, the playwright Tracy Letts.

Oh! Well, well, well. Friend of the show. He's sat where you see. And he's coming in next week, in fact. Yes. Now that Tracy has become a full-time podcast, I'm also just kind of like listening to Tracy Letts every day.

I'm beginning to assume that, you know, parachute into the sports podcast. I listen to. He'll just kind of be like ever present. He just like lives in the ringer offices now. Reviewing Quiznos on Doe Boys. And it's like, you know, fun fact about that guy.

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, in fact, on top of all his great podcast. He likes to make that joke of like that stuff, that's my hobby. This is my real job. And increasingly it's starting to feel like he's actually proving that way.

Joey, okay, well, they were going to read five Tracy Let's plays. Don't quote me on the five. They were going to do like an all. All-day marathon Tracy Letts session. August Ossish County, Susical the Musical.

What were the other two? Wait, now I need to look up what they were. Killer Joe, I would assume, is one of the big ones. Superior Donuts. We got Killer Joey on this episode. Well, we do have Killer Joey on this episode. That's a bit of a spoiler. Superior Donuts, which I should bring up to Tracy next time,

I see him and ask him, when is the next CBS sitcom adaptation of one of his plays going to premiere? It is so funny that happened. It would just be so funny if CBS is like, we're going to do a bug sitcom. It's about a wacky motel. I mean, it's a little like Alice doesn't live here anymore, where you're like, that spawned a network sitcom that ran for years? And they're like, look, her name's Alice. She's a waitress.

After that, we kind of did her own thing. Securred Donuts, same thing where you're like, I don't know, a guy owns a donut shop. People show up. Well, I've never seen the place Superior Outs, but Spirry Donuts is, you know, is a lighter It's a lighter. It's a bit lighter, relatively speaking. The plays included in the festival, which was never rescheduled, I'm sad to say. rude.

Was Tracy going to be there or was just... I don't know, presumably. You could ask him about it. August O. Sage County. We were going to open with that. Wow. Killer Joe, Linda Vista, The Minutes,

and Man from Nebraska. That's funny that it was, yeah, no bug, no donuts. No bug, no donuts. But, you know... But all of his regulars were slated for this day-long thing. Margot O'Martindale was going to be there.

Lily Raib, Thomas Sodowski. Oh, this is a... Matthew Lillard was going to be. So it's going to be the second most incredible cultural event in New York City that. But yes. Behind Ben and I attending the blink of an eye premiere. Yeah, interesting that you chose not to go bug nuts. Neither bug nor donuts.

I guess bug is like, it's like, wow, you can go see that on Broadway. That was probably because bug was playing on Broadway. And Superior Donuts, you can scale Paramount Plus. You can climb the mountain and watch all. Let's find out. Can you? How many episodes of Superior Donuts do we think there were? Of course, the Tracy Letts sitcom adaptation. starring Judd Hirsch and Jermaine Fowler.

I'm going to guess 26. I mean, yeah, like two seasons of 13 each. Is my guess, but I'm not sure. Do you want to... Does anyone else want to put it in it? Wait, is that a bit or was it actually renewed for a second season? It was two seasons of Superior. There were two seasons?

I thought it was like two episodes canceled type deal. I'm going to guess 40. Anyone else want to, you know, price is right, you know, kind of... Close this without going over. 32. All right, all right, 30. I hear 32. I think it's at 26. You said 40.

33. The answer is 34. Ben Gazzumped you, Joey. Oh, wow. Ben gazumped you. So what do I get? You get a superior donut to be named later. You'll get one at some point. You're now responsible for rescheduling

the Tracy Letts marathon and producing it. And the blink of an eye premiere. You have to reschedule that. We got to give you that. The first season was 13 episodes. The second season was a full network season. 21 episodes. There we go. And then they canceled it. And then they canceled it.

Let's see, along with Kevin can wait and some of my other favorite shows, 9 J.K.L. Living Biblically? What the fuck is this shit? Living Biblically, I think, it was based on that book, the year of living biblically, and it's sort of like Bible Yes Man where a guy has to... A Lapsed Catholic, besides starring J.R. Ferguson from Madman. Yes. This is before he basically

became a regular on the Connors, of course, the Best American Comedy Series. And then they also canceled Dan Coppulman's Me, Myself and I, which was the Bobby Moynihan sitcom, I think, that didn't last very long? That was a big splashy show that I think

was the first cancellation of the season. It was... Didn't he leave SNL for that show? Yep. Wait, what? Moynihan. No. Yes.

Really? Or maybe not for it, but like, it was the first thing he did at least. Yeah, I guess you're right. Dang, yeah. 2017? Yeah.

No, that was... I mean, talk about a different time. Nine years ago. bring Bobby back. Why not? He looks busy. He just gotta have him on someday.

I would love to have Bobby I would love to have Bobby my turn on. I feel like Bobby's taste my friend Bobby who I'm referring to by his first thing is like, you know, we'd want a movie that he's passionate about like, you know, he loves the goofy stuff, the silly stuff, the sci-fi stuff. He loves the

Muppets. He does love the Muppets. He does love the Muppets. Sure. He's on the what I'm I call it. He's on the Daniel Radcliffe Tracy Morgan Morgan Show. I know. I need to watch that. He's constantly on on ATV.

Oh, I know Bobby's busy. It's just like Bobby loved Estinel so much. Bobby booked and busy. Bobby, and he's Hoppers. He's the mayor. He's the king of the box office this year. Do you see Hoppers? No, I didn't see Hopper.

Why not? You know, I haven't been inside like a movie theater in a few months. Why not? I don't know if I had a lot going on. I guess so. You got to host some movies. You haven't been inside a movie theater in a few months,

so you saw Michael early. You went to several test screenings and gave them notes. Wait, so you haven't seen Hocom? Well, about that, there's Hockemp? That's the Adam Scott nonsense. It's all nonsense is Hocom! Which, of course, is a synonym for nonsense.

You haven't seen, wait, come on, wait a second. Now I'm going to get, I'm going to get righteously maddy. This is blank check. The goat. You don't know the goat? You haven't seen the goat hit the court for a girl ball. Or who is Sylvia? What do you tell?

Oh, goat. Yeah, it was an animated. That shows you how your brain works. There's an animated adaptation of Edward Albee's the ghost. Goder, who is Sylvia, my daughter's favorite movie in the year. Yeah, you didn't see what else we got? Did you see

Nirvana, the band of the show of the movie? Interesting. You like that. AFC. That's the whole joke of Nirvana. It had an amazing kind of that. Well, it's spelled like that because that's how Canadians say Nirvana. Sure. And that's why it has the double N, Nirvana. I feel like you're pronouncing it really hard.

Nirvana. Simply, I'm simply going with their bin. It was just, it was interesting. Yeah, so I saw that. Was that my last one? Did you see the bone temple? Yeah. No, yeah. So January and February, you were getting shit dumb.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you fell off. And then, well, things. Undertone? Scary podcast. Late at night. I was actually intrigued by undertone, by the first wave of reactions to undertone,

where people were like, scariest movie ever. And then there came a second wave. Yeah, so interesting how that happens with independent horror films that the first reviews from like, user, I've been paid money on Twitter, is like, the Exorcist is a fucking baby compared to this.

You, I'm dead. I'm dead. Here's my death certificate. It killed me. Dead in the theater. At scream till you shock underscore XXXXX. And then undertone, which is a movie I did not like hate, but it was I found a lot of like, what was that? A lady in a, did I hear something?

David is looking behind him in a eye direction. But also made like 3 million domestic on like a $1 million budget. I don't think it got that far, but it did. I'm sure it made people money. Like, let's see. Where did it get to? 19 domestic. Okay.

It's one of those movies where I was like, that didn't pan out. And then you see the return on investment. And you're like, 824 made a ton of money. The budget was probably like 80 cents on that thing. It said at a fucking table. Well, they had to work overnights. Yeah, right. They had to film it at 3 a.m.

When she is, of course, logically, recording a podcast. There is some, there's some, shoot, leather about like, oh, he's in a different time zone. That's how they explain that away. Did you see... It costs half a million dollars, so it made 40 times... It's budget. Super Mario Galaxy? Did you... My daughter's other favorite movies?

Naming children's movies. What about the Christophers? That's good. Go see that. I don't want to see the Christopher. You like that? You like the Christopher. I know. I would love the Christopher. The hot button, everyone must have a tape. The drama, I nearly made it. Buttons being pushed.

I nearly made it to the drama. And then what happened? I just went back. and watched all four seasons of 13 reasons why instead, because, you know, it dealt with a lot of the same previous hot button. The same material. Right. Mother Mary? You got to meet mother. You got to meet the mother.

No, and I wanted to see that too. But, you know, look, Christopher's Mother Mary, look, these are movies that I am representative of, sadly, the average, the average audience. They meet Joey says? I know. But we were like, yeah, I want to try to find my, try to find time for that and then... But you're going to see Mortal Kombat, too.

Well, actually, yes. Because I saw the first Mortal Kombat in the AMC Empire 25 and which is what I believe is where you're going to see Mortal Kombat too. This is priorities guys. This is the right thing to do. I had a great time. Of course. Scorpion was there. Sub-zero. Most of the Trump

Cabinet in fact. I'm having fun. You didn't see Project Hail Mary? No, that's the kind of crazy one. He's got a little rock buddy. I don't know if you're familiar with this gentleman named Rocky. Rocky. No, and then I, he was puppeteered by an artist who I know well. The cow guy, right? James Ortiz, who did, exactly, who did, um, he was the cow guy. He did the, Into the woods. He was the cow. He comes from the theater world. He did,

yeah, Milky White for the Into the Woods Broadway, Robbins. The best guy I ever saw. Rocky was like a Broadway guy before he made his transition to movies. To space? Yeah, so Rocky, Rocky operated. Rocky is real. Yes, I know this. He's one of my good friends. Friend of the pod. Wuthering Heights? Did you weather? I did weather.

He scaled the heights. Yeah. I did weather. The bride? Did you marry? This is a fun game. I know, I'm just having fun. Can you tell I'm not like that eager to talk about this movie?

The bride, when I thought the bride was a musical, I was like, I got to go see that. It has a dash of that. Yeah. There's a dash. They put on the Ritz for 20 minutes or whatever. Yeah. You didn't see it. No. Oh, interesting.

Return to Silent Hill. Do you return to Silent Hill? Do you get in the iron lung? I'm just, I'm getting deeper now. This is a game I like. This time of year, we're recording this episode in May. It will come out in July. Is that correct? It's not the closet. So the summer just kicked off. And it means it's the final moment where the top 10 box office movies of the year is still kind of wacky. Right? Where it's not like there are movies that can be in the top 10 that were not blockbusters.

Sure. So Reminders of him is currently the 10th highest grossing film of the year. We love it. Just get another colleague. Is that a Hoover joint? Yeah, but the drama might overtake it. The drama might briefly be the 10th highest grossing film. Because the drama has really been had been holding instead.

Yeah, yeah. But right now, yeah. Super Mario Galaxy, Project Hail Mary, Michael Hoppers, Devil Wears, Prada 2 haven't seen? Oh, no, yeah, I do need to see that. Scream 7, goat, Wuthering Heights, send help. I still send home. Okay, so you saw two out of the ten. This year's needed Joey in the cinema.

You're seeing too many dang plays. You're seeing too many dang plays. March and April is the height of the... Of the theater. It's a TV season. But I'm usually not totally absent from the movie theater. Something went wrong.

You work in the theater district. Again, not to doc. You host a theater podcast. House closed. It's called House Closed? It's called House Closed. Theater we saw. theater we saw, which I host my friend

Connor Scully. And we'll talk about that. And we'll introduce what this show is in one second. But because you work in the theater district, you are near the two busiest theaters. This is true. And movie theaters in New York are like, you know, the MC Empire, you know, what's on screen 25, baby? This is what I used to do. This is how my

life used to be structured when I had different part-time jobs in Midtown is that it would be like I'd go in the morning, do like a shift at one job, go to the Empire, AMC, Empire, 25. Take off your Aladdin outfit. Joe used to wear an Aladdin outfit. It didn't wear an Aladdin.

I was an usher at Aladdin. Did you have like a hat or something? I think you're conflating it with when I worked concessions at Elf the Musical and I wore like a... A little elf hat? A little elf hat, yes. And yeah, I wore like a uniform

as an usher at Aladdin. Sure. I'm sure. But just like a, you know... But you'd ride the carpet down to the end of the block. So I'd ride the carpet down. And then I'd have a few... hours before my evening work. So then, yeah, I'd slot in whatever was playing in screen 24 at the 25, you know. So that was how I saw a lot of...

Wow, George Flint originated Santa Claus in Elf the Musical? Yeah, that was I... My first job in the city was doing concessions at the Revival. Broadway, the second engagement. Wayne Knight was Santa. Of Elf the Musical. It was not a revival. It was just them It was a seasonal. It was just them revival on Wikipedia. I guess it is

it was basically just them doing the same thing again. Right. Just like a second engagement of the same production. It was, this will only run eight weeks a year.

It will come back only in the holiday window. They brought it back two years in a row and then they brought it back again a few years. And then like, if they don't bring it to Broadway,

then it tours over the Christmas. It's been done on the West End four separate times. Wow. And it always tells. It's not even set in England. Who of the British Santa's been? Was Santa my, just my Santa, for my one, for the second one, was Wayne Knight.

Yeah, that's great. The only Santa I recognize among the British revivals is the third time. Oh, no, I'm sorry. No, I don't know any of the British ones. The third time they did it on Broadway, though, it was Sean Aston. Now, do you like getting that call as Sean Aston where they're like, we think you're Santa size now? You know, Sean?

Also, like Santa Aage. We saw you recently. Yeah, and sort of Santa Age. Are you ready to put on the beer? And George Went both have years on him. They do. Do credit to Sean Aston. Went and Knight did the original...

The national president of that show. Yes, exactly. The original Santa track of that show, which is he pops up basically at the beginning and at the end and that's it. So for them, they're like, great, easy game, Broadway money, whatever. Yeah.

For Aston, they reworked it so that he had a second role in the show that he played for a significant fit of the middle part. Mr. Greenway. It was the, he was like the evil boss. Okay. Of the publishing company. That's thematically precedent.

It is. Good and bad. It's a Captain Hook, Mr. Darling kind of thing. Interesting. No, no, no, no. Not the father. You're saying he played the James Conn character's boss. Yes, that's.

Michael Lerner's role in a movie. I suppose that. I'm just saying like sort of father figures, but I guess you're right that James Conn is more of a father figure to, Khan and Asner are the two big father figures to Buddy the Elton. They are. But everyone forgets that Academy Award nominee Michael A great actor.

For the first time in his life played an ordinary boss? Get me a time! Look! I want that bloody the hell feeling! Do you think Michael Lerner maybe contributed to a sort of negative stereotype over the years? The amount of bosses he played

behind desks yelling. I don't know. I don't know. Listen, this is Blank Shack with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about Alphalmography's directors who have massive success early on in their career

and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks are clear. Sometimes they bounce, baby. And sometimes they vanish into the ether. They do. And the blink of an eye. And the blink of an eye.

And the blink of it. Truly, this was a one blink movie. Blinky blink. Yeah, this one blinked. I almost was like, has it left Hulu? It was like, no, it's there. Okay, few. It is wild that twice he has had this ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card.

Yeah. Guys, don't worry, Toy Story 5 is coming out in months. Yeah. mere weeks from now, I will have one of the highest grossing films of the year of not in history. I also feel like John Carter was an actual, like, much-discussed bomb,

whereas this is more just something like no one never really knew it happened, so it's less, it'll stick to him a little bit. It's an interesting, right. Is it worse to have the most existent bomb in history or a true tree falls in the middle of the woods and no one's there to hear it movie? Right. I think it's better to have the,

I made a movie that didn't exist. like Chris White's who's been on her show and discussed this. He made the Golden Compass, a movie that bankrupted his studio. God bless. Love you, Chris. And then he- Love you, New Line. Rest in Power. Yeah, rest in power.

Now you're a shingle. Went to the great shingle area in this guy. And then he made Afraid. That's how I refer to it. Yes. A-Fried. A-Fraid. You see, you don't even know what happened.

Afraid. Yeah, he made a movie called... I don't even know about these movies to exist. He made an AI horror movie. called Afraid, but the AI in Afraid is capitalized. Afraid! Not his title. It had different title. No, it was called They Listen.

Yes. And then Sony was like a should be called Afraid! Afraid! And he has copped to its non-existence on this very show. He made a movie that didn't exist. He went through a Barton Fink-esque atonement, yes. Also, this movie premiered at Sundance and then dropped on

Hulu like a month later. So I don't know all the behind the scenes, but that doesn't give a feeling of them being like, oh, we want to try to get someone to put this in theaters. That was always the exact plan, and he has been transparent about when they greenlit this movie, they were like, it's going to Hulu, by the way. It's a Hulu original.

I think the Sundance premiere, if anything, was sort of a gesture of goodwill or a kind of like, but you can be at a festival, that's cool. Yes, it was, right. That is the way to give this movie a launch. I don't know how much of an effort they would put into a traditional marketing campaign, if not for, we can go to Sundance and you can do a bunch of interviews and a screen with a bunch of press there. It can happen that the film debuts at Sundance and people are like, we don't like it. Sure.

And then that'll, that's bad. But I know, I know the date was set for when it was dropping on Hulu before it went to Sundance. In my memory, there was sort of an all in one announcement of this will premiere at Sundance and go to Hulu on February 27. it's called in the blink of an eye. It's a film made by Andrew Stanton, whose films were covering in a miniseries were calling, Potsie. Oh.

You don't like that? I don't want to do rail the series. It's going to look really good. Pretty far along, too. It's look really good on the graphic. We've only got 25 left, right? Yeah, yeah. So you better like it.

Joey, I... So you guys have done John Carter. We leaped across that one. Yeah, of course. Who's the John Carter guest? That's here. great Matt Singer. Great episode.

Are you a John Carter? Fan, interrogator. Are you Joey Sims of Mars? Yeah. You know, I rewatched a chunk of it ahead of this episode. I didn't, wasn't able to, I didn't have time to get through the whole thing. It didn't play as well to me as the first time I watched it. I remember watching it a few years ago and being like, this is kind of like a glorious mess.

Like, wow, this is like a crazy, like, obviously. doesn't work, but what ambition? And I thought I would be revisiting that feeling. And then I watched it again and was like, oh, Jesus, this is just like, just the way it starts is like so rough. I think the bookends are tough

with that one. I think there were some notes on that from me in the episode, the non-Mars stuff. Yes. Yeah. This is a similarly ambitious movie. I mean, this is not like a... That's true. Yes. It's less, right. Like, the scale of it is more suggested

than shown, but right. But it does, it is, I would say, narratively and emotionally ambitious, and it does feel like on paper a high-risk movie. A, if you don't get this right, it's going to be embarrassing kind of movie.

Right. Who's our guest? Our guest, as I said, Joey Sims, a host of House Closed, which I Googled to make sure I was getting the podcast, correct, and are you aware,

Joey, that there is another podcast hosted by a man named Joey Sims. I assume not you, I assume you're not doing double duty called Healing Word. Join Joey Sims as we are challenged by studying the Bible to grow in our relationship with God. Well, well, well. And encouraged to apply God's word in our life.

It sounds like ripe material for a J. Ferguson sitcom. Yes, house closed. Yes. Peter, we saw with Sims and Scully. Big two. My co-host, the big two, my co-host being the lovely. Connor Scully, a theater producer, and we see, yeah, I'm doing my plug. Do your plug.

We see two shows together. Sometimes a guest will also have seen the same two shows. Okay. That are either currently running like Broadway, off Broadway, off Broadway, whatever. And then we talk about those two shows. Or in our latest episode, the fourth episode that we just did, it was three, it was three shows. So we're four episodes in and we already broke our format. You people are...

Sorry. How many of your episodes have been, MJ the Musical, so far? Well, we're saving MJ the Musical. So over the summer, when things slowed down in the theater world, we'll do a 10-episode series, analyzing MJ the Musical, all the decisions that happened there. Will you during the slowest months, like, check in with more long-running shows? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're trying to figure out, like, over the... summer, like, what, like, fun things can we do? Like, we want to do, like, perfect crime, you know, the show that's been running off Broadway for a million. You know about perfect crime. I have been really tempted to go see perfect crime. And in fact, Zach Cherry, very recent guest on this podcast,

most recent guest on this podcast, he and I have been strategizing to go see perfect crime together. Because he didn't know about it, and I told him, and he's fairly obsessed. Now, have you seen it before? New York's longest running play. I haven't seen it. It bills itself as New York's longest running play.

it is this, like, god-awful, like, murder mystery that's been running at the theater center. Says here, it's perfect. Right, right. What used to be the Snapple Theater. What used to be the Snapple Theater. But that used to have the Fantastics. Yes.

Many years ago, it's true. And the venue is owned now by the lead actress, right? Yes, I guess. I believe she owns the venue. Yes, that is correct. Content warning suicide! This sounds dark! Well, that's a spoiler alert.

And she has appeared... She started. in the show, produces the show, like hands out the playbills, you know, like one of those. She's been doing it since it started. I think she claims she's never missed a performance. I'm not sure if that's...

No, it's true. They're dark on Wednesdays, though, lazy. And they were, like, uninterrupted, you know, up until the pandemic. I know she's, like, griped about that a lot. But there's also... She didn't want to close. She was like...

Oh, good. But she's, like, missed family members' wedding. Oh, yeah. Right, right, right, right. Her children don't know her. There was a point that she was appearing in another play at the same time, and she was still doing perfect murder. Like, what's a crime?

For crying out of how dare you talk about the best show on Earth? But she would, like, do her walk on in the other play and then run over to the Snapple Theater and do, let me know when you actually make plans to go see it, because I... It has done 15,000 performances. I've been really eager to go, and I need the kick in the butt. It's been running as long as I've been allowed.

essential. It started a year after I was born, probably in my honor. I should clarify, their performances were interrupted one other time by a very iconic event. I remember this press release so well, so I was just pulling it back up to remember.

Off Broadway's Perfect Crime and the Office, the musical, because the Office parody musical, runs in the same building. Halt performances due to theft of pipes at the theater. So much stole some copper pipes. I just want to find this. Burgulers broke.

fix you pipes, boys. The perfect crime. Brogillers broke into the vacant restaurant below, made their way to the basement of the building, disconnected, and then stole every piece of copper pipe they could find. This is quoting from

the press release that the show put out. Leaving the building without any access to water. The criminals returned in the early hours today, smashing the front doors. They've not yet been... Anyway, so they were also interrupted when all when all their copper pipes were stored. What year was that?

We're pipeless. that was in 2022. And I don't know if these hoodlums were ever identified. Did you know that after the end of the show, you are given a two-page answer sheet to explain the show because it's complex? Yes. Is that because people were complaining?

Like, I don't understand the ending. Here's some other facts. It's run in eight different theaters since 1987. It's at eight venues. It premiered off-broad in the West Village at the Gros, the courtyard playhouse. In November, 20, 16, Gary Busey spent two weeks in the role of Lionel.

Two fantastic weeks. November 2016, kicking a miracle while it was down. Why did he do that? They've starcasted other people. John Snyder was briefly in Perfect crime. I love him. One of the Dukes of Hazard.

Perfect politics. Isn't he the one, isn't the other one worse? Or are both Duke's kids? No, Schneider's the bad one. Is Schneider the one who is in? in Smallville? Yes.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. She's never taken a sick day. She's missed only four performances, Catherine Russell,

the last in 1995 to attend her brother's wedding. That was the last time she was willing to go to a wedding over doing the show. So the Snapple

has two theaters, two stages. No longer the Snapple. So it used to be sponsored by Snapple. It's eternally the Snapple to me. No one, no, no,

because there used to be this big, the Snapple signs. A cap. I remember. The caps that would go around and round. scaled a building to try to see the fact underneath

because it wasn't facing the street. And it was like, perfect crime, $60. Come on. Don't steal our pipes. Pipes not for sale. And they took them off. They took them off. Now it is just the theater.

Well, do you think they were like, Hey, Snapple, do you want to sponsor the theater? And they were like, we sponsor it. I mean, I will say, if you go to the Wikipedia page for the theater center, the image it shows you immediately is Snapple. Yeah. You can't. You can't shake that.

You can't shake that. But I know that one of the theaters is the Jerry Roebuck Theater. Mm-hmm. After the Great Jericho. That's where Fantastics ran for many, many years. Yes. He was in the original. And that's where I guess the Office musical is the Ann El Bernstein Theater. Yeah, right now they have perfect crime, the Office Parody Musical, and they have one other parody musical going right now.

It looks like they also have Friends, the Unauthorized Musical parody. There we go. And Singfeld, which is an unauthorized Seinfeld parody, Musical. Wow, well, well. I saw also a sadly now closed Love Actually parody musical at the same venue. It was actually not long after theaters reopened

after COVID that I went to see that show. You were happy. And my main memory of it was that the Alan Rickman character was performed by a guy who was in full like Snape garb. And like anytime anyone would talk to him, he'd pull out his wand. You get it.

It was kind of funny. Expecto adultery. There you go. Perfect Crime opened. It reopened April 2021. It was the first show in New York City to get approval from actors' equity to resume performances.

You just imagine that Catherine Russell was like scratching her thighs for 14 months, like digging her nails and being like, when can I get back on the fucking stage? De Blasio appeared at their first performance. I think he like gave a little speech. There's Fiorello the musical, of course, which is about LaGuardia. Right?

It's the famous Broadway musical. When will we get our De Blasium musical? Bill. Is there... Tall Bill. I was going to say, who's the tallest musical theater actor we have right now? Tommy Too. Like, do we have to put Norman Leo butts on stilts to do the DeBloss?

Fuck. Who is the tallest Broadway actor? Well, I'll just Google it. Who is the... Who is the Broadway actor? Browns actor. Yeah. You bring me on for this type of.

Tommy Toon did come up. Exactly this type of insight. Harold McGillan, I can tell you. Sure. Who is a longtime Phantom. Is 6-4. Pretty good. Not as tall as Bill.

Who's 6-7? Tommy Tune 6. And then Timothy Hughes, that's the big man from Hades Town. I was thinking of the big guy from the name. Now, he's more of an ensemble player. He's, you know, very hot. But I remember that with Hades Town, where there was the one big guy.

Yeah, the tall. Because they've got all the guys with the big hammers who are like, you know, in industrial hell. I mean, you're also saying he's more of an ensemble guy. This is maybe his breakout. This is the thing that makes him a leading man. I mean, de Blasio. Yeah, you know what?

Get him out there. Yeah, you know, first act, De Blasio is mayor. Second act. De Blasio is Horndog. I was going to say entire second act is just sitting down with the New York Times for that piece. just like DeBosio like on the apps you know it's just like DeVosio being like field eh

I'll get a match one of these days even if they hire someone like this Hughes guy they should still put the actor on stilts and make him so tall that his head is not visible in the proscenia march that would be good it should be like police squad style he's out of frame

um you know this film came out in the wake of an eye so look look Look, look, look. There was nobody out here who was like, when are you guys covering in a blink of an eye and can I be on the show? Literally, nobody. Nobody.

Joey has a new show. He is a new podcast. It's a show. A show about shows. He is my brother. Not to mention the credits. Longtime brother. Long time brother.

Hey, and uncle. And he is my uncle. Funkler. No, he's a wonderful uncle to my children. How are my kids doing? One of your younger sons has some anger. issues. Sure.

But overall, overall, they're doing great. He's got a lot of rage. It's rock steady. No, BBA. Oh, they have names too. Well, yeah. It's so funny to watch him do the math.

To do the math. Yes. It's why I tee him up every time. Because I like that he has to, like, seriously remember the canon he's containing. Yeah. So you're like, I'd love to, you know, plug my show on the podcast.

You know, like, what's coming up? Like, Scorsese, could I do Hugo? and I'm like, you know, Hugo's a 2027 episode for us. It's going to be a while. It's going to be a while's away. You know, and I was like, look. You know what's coming up in the blink of an eye? I got an empty spreadsheet cell right here in front of me

for a much more recent episode. If you'd care to fire up HuluhulU.com. It felt sort of in keeping with my, you know, some of my appearances so far on the show. Lost in Space. A great movie. As a sibling's choice. Yes. Ratatooey. And Ray, an actually great movie.

Yes. Raditu ain't actually great movie. A double sibling episode. Yes, but then Polar Express. A cancer you infected us with. That one I requested. Yes. And now David has seen that movie like 80 times and has like fucking Stockholm syndrome.

Yeah, I kind of like it. Never live. Never and ever. It is fun. It was fun in theaters. I was thinking about, you know, the era of the siblings' choice, a thing where we needed to fill slots on the schedule and we were like, what are fun ideas for episodes?

both of my siblings' choices got 20 years later legacy sequels. Right, that's a good point. We just had Romilly on the show because Devil was proud of two. Space Jam, of course, got the perfect and well-remembered

They started a new legacy, yes. It's algae rhythm up to lately. Running for 28, public nomination. I was going to say. He's the entire cabinet. The green-lit Michael? Or he's selecting the caption?

G. You see space German? No, is this the Don Cheadle AI thing? Yes, his name is Al J. Rhythm. He's an algorithm.

Connor Rath has a running bit where he insists on calling that character the king of content, even though he's never seen the movie and he won't be corrected on it. Yeah. And I was like, oh, what are the chances we get

a lost in space legacy sequel? And you're like, they're actually zero. We got the Netflix series. But I think with Hurt Dead. Oh, yeah, that's the top reason. That's the top reason. Who's going to bring the herd, if not big bill?

Goldsman is after, after amassing power at Paramount, Goldsman is like calling up the exact he's like, listen, I wrote a draft of Lost in Space 2. Wait a second, David. I think I know what you're going to say. Well, I mean, I was trying to point to one. I was trying to point to our president of Red Hulk who's over there, but we bought new shelves.

We're remodeling the office. I'm not sure where President Hulk is right now. Do we know, Ben? Okay. I'm not, I'm not certain. He was, he was, respectively. stuffed away. He's our president.

So, yeah. And I did salute him. Let's say he's visiting Camp David. Yes. Gotta see the blossoms. Yeah. Live Tyler. Where are my pills?

So are you suggesting... Like fucking recasses. Harrison Ford. Swap him in. slot him in there. Be like, we got Ford. We got Ford. Everyone else is back.

Mimi Rogers. Yes. Matt LeBlanc. Lacey Chabre. Blarp. The fucking kid who played the kid. Blarp is. They're all back.

Jared Harris. We don't let him talk. We will read up to him. Yes. Gary Oldman only in Spider-4. Yes. Heather Graham. Heather Graham?

She's probably the most, like, still looks like herself of all the people I just mentioned. Like she's aged into. Yeah, you're like, oh, yeah, she's still Heather Graham. She's doing the new White Lotus season? Is she on that? I think so. Did you see our friend Max Miguel is on it? I did see that.

Well, well, wow. Checking it. checking in. Ding, ding, ding. But Lost in Space, too, I'd love to see it. It does seem unlikely. I also feel like Stephen Hopkins has not worked of late. Yeah.

What was his last film? I don't think he did anymore. Old Stevie. Films. Didn't he just retreat back to television? No, you are wrong. And I remember his last film, of course, because it was Race. Oh, right.

Jesse Owens' biopic that came out 10 years ago that has a lot of Lenny Riefenstahl. Like, you watch it, and you're like, this is going to be a Jesse Owens by a pick. They're like, yeah, yeah, sure. He ran the race. Lenny Riefenstall, though, played by Carrey Spanthoughton, is like a big part of the movie

because, of course, it's about the 36 Olympics, but like it's maybe a little too concerned with her, probably because she's a fascinating figure in history, but you're kind of like, isn't this the Jesse Owens movie? Well, they have a little bit of a will-they-w-w-wain-thay-thing-going. Talk about an insane filmography, though.

Dangerous game, Nightmare and Elm Street, the Green Child. He was a solid genre. director. Predator 2, Judgment, like, blown away, the ghost of darkness.

Blown away in Ghosts and Darkness or him leveling up to like a bigger scale genre thing. Then Lost in Space is like you get to do a big fucking special effects. This is a giant special effects,

studio movie, right? You know, it was new line, but still, you know. And then under suspicion. I've never seen. Of course, the big three, Hackman Freeman, Balucci.

Then the Life and Death and Peter Sellers, HBO movie. Which is like not bad. Yeah. But, it's TV. The Reaping. That's the Hillary Swank.

That's the Hillary Swank 10 Plagues of the Bible movie. Correct. Where she's like, I have two Oscars and I'm like, then why are you fighting Locust? Hillary. That is a brutal retort.

Why are you fighting Lucas? It's not like all about Steve where Sandra Bullock's like, look, I filmed this right before I won with us. It's like, it's three years after a million dollar pay around. Like, you have two Oscars. Yeah. You had to do the reaping? Yeah.

And then race. And then race. Yeah. Then there's nine years between the reaping and race. and he hasn't made a film sense. He's made some TV sense. David, I love wearing glasses, but they can be a hassle sometimes.

Oh, they're on your head. It's very annoying. I mean, it's so easy to put off buying new glasses for so long because it's so expensive and it can be such a difficult process. Uh, yes.

Well, Zeni, it's an online eyewear shop that's got prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light lenses, and they start it under $30. Okay? That's a low amount of,

money. Yeah. So you just, you go to zeni.com, you pick a frame, you upload your prescription, and they ship it to your door, no appointment, no store, no EFsill at the counter. So if you want to replace some glasses, you do it just like that, and it's cheap as heck. It takes the pressure off the process and the choice. Yes. They got over 150,000 five-star reviews.

And if you've never brought glasses online before, Zennie has a virtual try-on, so you can see exactly how a frame looks on your face before you commit. Mm-hmm. Go to Zennie. com slash podcast, and you use code Podcast 15 for 15% off your first order. The styles do sell out, so don't sit on it. That's z-e-n-n-I.com slash podcast, promo code Podcast 15. But you're here to discuss Andrew Stanton's in the blink of an eye.

This came out February 27th. Then I thought, oh, leap day. And then I'm like, oh, no, no, leap day is February 29th. Then I had the thought, what movies came out on February 29th? Because that's rare. Oh, sure. I found three. Okay.

Do you want to hear them? Yep, please. Semi pro. Yeah. February 29th, 2008. Not a good movie in my memory. No. The other Berlin Girl.

Also February 29th. Okay. 2008. Same year. Yes. Here's the most important. Well, because it's so every four years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Here's the best one. Yeah. An extremely goofy movie. Okay. February 29th. That was pretty funny. Was it? That's a DTV, though.

It was a direct. But that's a wonderful film. That's it. Isn't it? It's a pretty excellent picture. guess me what if it's it's goofy movie

back to school it's like finally I get to move out and be my own man Right And goofy's like Hey yoke I'm sign an old

The dean He decides he wants to take classes And bring disco back Oh of course Yeah So there's a lot of shake your groove thing In that movie Bibi Newworth plays a hot beatnik

Love interest for goof Yeah Max have a he does i'm trying to remember he's gay that'd be pretty awesome if they'd done that it'd be pretty awesome if in the year 2000

fucking get over it I'm trying to remember who voice I'm sure it was like someone who was on a fucking fox or wb drama at the time uh in the blink of an eye came out this year

I'm seeing here that vicky Lewis is the charismatic you're right and bbby new earth is a librarian uh just just let you know okay so vicky lewis is the Beatnik who is Max's love interest and BB Newworth as the librarian

who's the dad's life age wise but I wasn't going to say anything. I'm here to tell you that Vicki Lewis plays PJ's love interest. Where the fuck is PJ PJ? PJ is the best friend. Forgive me for not remembering who PJ goofy is. Yeah, of course. He's Pete's son.

Oh, he's the chunkier one. He's a big guy. But then wait a second. Does Max not have a love interest? He's an insult. Okay. He starts looking for a fortune. I can't believe that I'm doing this. Okay. Can we, we're about 45-ish.

You know what? This is going to be a 90-minute episode anyway. So let's talk about it in the blink of an eye. I do have a dossier if you want me to open it. Incredibly, JJ did research on this movie. That is astonishing. Look, it's a feature film. It looks science-y.

That's true. I'm sure they built sets and stuff. They didn't just like make it in his backyard. 2016, Andrew Stanton made Finding Dory. 2026 he made in the blink of an eye. So that's 10 years. Yeah. What did he do in between?

Many things. Live action television. Yes. I think basically post-Dory, he basically was like, I want to make live-action stuff, and there's lots of TV, and it's a way to do it.

He did a recent interview, leading up to Toy Story 5, where he said that he intends for Toy Story 5 to be his final animated film. And he said, it's just that these movies take so long, and I love animation, but I was never primarily an animation person.

I grew up like working at an art house theater in high school, and that's when I really fell in love with film. And I'm into all different types of movies, and it's been a great blessing to work at a place like Pixar and have that sort of freedom and leeway. But you can get a lot more done in live action. And I think there was a hope that, well, finding Dory resets the board a little bit from the stink of John Carter,

and now I will try to make a smaller budgeted live action film. And there are many scripts that he has options and signed up for. But to sort of get his reps And meanwhile, he did a tremendous amount of live action TV. He directed episodes five and six of the second season of Stranger Things. I haven't seen them because Barb's not involved. Obviously, my stance on Stranger Things is

no Barb, no, David. My Barb Purist. A Barb absolutist, in fact. Yes. Yes. You watch Stranger Things. Yeah. Do you remember Andrew Stanton's work on Stranger Things?

I mean, Stranger Things has a pretty solid, like, established visual style that I feel like even even when you're bringing in like Stanton or even like Frank Daribon. Is it Beckner or fucking what is it the Wilderbe's? Yeah, it's Vecna Demigorgon? Vecna lives

on top of that tummy floor. He lives in the tummy. The tummy is Vecna's home. That was the twist. Joey, I have never watched Stranger Things. I believe just because I try to keep tabs on Stanton's stuff, he directed the 11 like punk episode. Oh, did he do that one? Yes.

That one that one that they kind of, well, it was like a... Did he? A second season, yeah, like, almost a, like, failed backdoor pilot thing. A little bit of a kind of one-off self-contained episode. No, he didn't direct that one. He didn't? Okay. No, that was Rebecca Thomas. Interesting. He directed episodes five and six, and I can tell you, like, Hopper, Hooper?

Hopper? This is season two. Yeah. And that's all he... Yeah, hopper. Yeah, he got lost in a tunnel and, you know, um... Yeah, I just... Levin appears to be involved. I'm sure he did a good job. You know, I got to say the only ones that I ever remember noticing like, oh, there's a bit of extra flavor here was when Darabon directed a couple episodes in the last season of Stranger Things. And you noticed a few things where you're like, oh, okay, that has a little swish to it.

Now, this is a show I never stuck with. I only watched the first season, but I know you watched a Pignada, the sixth episode of the fourth season of Better Call Saul. It's an excellent episode. And Better Call Saul is a show I adore. You're a big fan, I know. Yes, I think it's like a masterpiece. But that's a very good episode.

He directed an episode of Legion. Legion. He did the fourth episode of Tales from the Loop. He did four total episodes of a show I Love Cove for All Mankind on Apple TV, including, in my opinion, its best ever episode. Wow. He did the third episode. It's the one where fucking, I mean, I don't remember like the names of the episode,

but like where Joel Edgert, I mean, not Joel Kinneman. God bless. There's a lot of Jol's out there. Robert Cop. where his adoptive daughter decides like she wants to be an astronaut, they have this huge fight. Or she wants to be in the military

or whatever, you know, like following his footsteps. And they have this huge fight in a living room, him and his wife and the daughter. And the camera like sticks with it, moves all around. And it's so good. And it's so beautifully acted. It's the show at its peak.

I mean, that show... I gotta start watching the show. It's falling off a little. Season 5's a little. It's kind of like, guys, I think you're done, you know, full of ideas. And our friend Ellen Sepp and Wall... It's so good.

in a text recently revealed to me that they are about to launch a spinoff show that is retelling everything that's happened on for all mankind so far from the perspective of the Russians. They're just resetting. It seems like a, I don't think it's going to run five seasons. Put it that way. Yeah. That's just a wild idea to be like a triumphant run. We're wrapping up.

By the way, the spinoff is starting in three months and it's just going back to the point of the story. I'm like, we know what happens. So what are we... Anyway, whatever. Who knows? It's also in English, despite all the Russian scenes in the show being in Russian in the main show.

But clearly, they were like, well, the whole show can't be in Russian. Then I'm like, well, then what are you doing? Yeah, well, we fucking... Maybe don't make it. He also directed an episode of three-body problem, and he wrote two episodes of Obi-1 Canobi. A show I recently watched for the first time, and I will admit, I think is quite terrible.

Quite bad, but he's like... The credits on that are, like, you know, He's like one of like a million names that like went in and out the door. Who knows. Exactly. Those Star Wars shows have a lot of wacky credits attached to them because at one point this person was supposed to do this or this was supposed to be a movie. Right.

Hey, you would like put him as an example, put Stanton in charge of like, hey, you're our like guiding vision for this show. Maybe it would have been better. But I don't think it was that. No, it's odd because, right, he gets credited as a writer on two episodes, but I don't even think he's a producer and he didn't direct any. Yeah. And it made sense. It just feels like you like stumbled. into a writer's room for two weeks, and then you were like,

ugh, fuck this. But it's also wild because it's not like he worked in a writer's room on any other shows from the time he starts a pencil. No, but like, I feel like that's kind of like what being in the Pixar Brain Trust is, though. A little bit. Yes. They just don't get credited that way. Totally. And I also think it makes sense that that moment, Obi-Wan is where they're really

starting to widen the aperture of like, maybe we're going to make a ton of stuff for Disney Plus. If I understand, I'm like, I just want to get in the door at Lucasfilm. I want to fucking talk to them about Star Wars. And I think a lot of people who worked on the Star Wars TV shows were basically like, I'd like to do something to do. I'd love to be on a set with a lightsaber. Like, it would just be awesome.

Like, I grew up with Star Wars, like this rock. I mean, obviously he makes sense. He does. To have done something. And a show that made sense was Obi-1 Canobi, a perfect miniseries that made sense. Sense. I assume I will have griped about this on a Mandalorian.

Everyone looks down the camera and was like, this makes sense. And Grogu episode. But it is astonishing to me that almost all of the Disney Plus Star Wars shows are about, a person with a child being chased by someone. Yes, being chased by the fourth most important evil Jedi adjacent darkside guy like in this sector. They present someone. Like Ray Stevenson, RIP, God bless him, shows up and he's like, and I'm also not a SIF.

Yes. But I kind of like them. And I'm not a Jedi either, but I have a lightsaber. And I'm like, well, what are you? He's like, I don't know. I was just like, how are these all the exact same premise where you're like, you're like semi-stoic lead, younger, more vulnerable, sort of like under the wing, you know, they have to protect.

They're looking for something and someone else is chasing them. And the person who's chasing them is establishes really evil. And the longer things go on, you're like, they're only kind of half evil. They're all that. Save for Andor. which is probably the best one. I mean, Assoca is pretty good. Has anyone thrown that take out?

I don't know. That Andrew's good? You know, not bad. Ben, we might want to cut that out just because... Well, my microphone's on fire! You've watched Ashoka, right? Asoka. I watched Asoka. I'm going to watch season two. Why not?

I love punishment. Yeah, I want to see what happens with... What the hell is the blue guy who like... Yeah, Thron. I think Asoka is so fast thing. I swear to God, they're like, get ready to meet the scariest villain in the world. He's fucking Joe Biden in that show.

He's so quiet. He's like, I just, the end of that season one is so wild to me because it's Flonie basically being like, I am setting up this Thrawn guy. Right. As like, this is it.

Like, this is the new guy. Because the show mostly has other smaller villains that she's dealing with. No, no, but just, not just in the show. Like, to me, it felt like it was suggesting, like, we are, this is your new bad. He's the engine of the Star Wars TV universe. Like, I want to make movies, and I'm sure he probably does want to do all this.

But I'm watching it, and I'm like, there's no fucking way that's happening. So what the hell is this? I don't know. Do we have to watch season two for the group? You don't have to do shit. Well, I know that. Season two hasn't happened and won't come out. Yeah, it won't come out by next week, thank God.

Because that's your season two, it doesn't even have. Yeah, it doesn't even have a piece. But it has been filmed. And Rory McCann replaced Ray Stevenson? Yeah, I mean, the man died. Look, Rayshund was not the problem. Exactly. Actually was the best part of the show.

He was the best performance. And you were kind of like, there's something to this idea. There's something. Right. You know, to like the idea of what he's playing. Obviously, the big problem with Asoka, Asoka. Asoka is just like, she's a non-character. She's a non-character.

And like, I know in the cartoon, she's like a spunky teen who's like, I'm a rebel or whatever. But by the time the show, like, now that she's a grown-up, She's just like, her vibe is she's serene. Every character is like that. Well, that's, yes, yeah. I mean, they're all kind of just like, we are your friend, Asoka. Okay, so we haven't, we haven't seen Mando and we haven't recorded yet. So I'm going to burn some of these takes here and just remind me to not make these complaints in the Mando episode, okay?

My takeaway watching Asoka was like, this feels like watching children perform Shakespeare, where they don't know what they're saying. Yeah. And the only direction they're being given is play it series. Seriously. And say it slow. Yes. So,

so slow. Everything is like your character motivation is serious. And I think that is partially that Faloni ran these cartoon shows. I have not watched much of Clone Wars, but I watched the majority of rebels, which I really liked, and was a show that was fun and had defined characters. And so much of Asoka is him being like,

I'm bringing all my rebels characters into live action, and then zapping them of any personality, Because I'm trying to fight the perception that these are children's characters. So everyone is just like saying things really slowly and quietly. Even fucking like Ezra shows up who's been built up as, by the way, you can't have a character called Ezra. No, Star Wars is ridiculous. But he shows up and he's been built up as like, oh, oh, crazy wild Ezra.

He's so fun. And then he's just pretty much just as dead-eyed as the rest of them. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who I always love. I think basically never misses. And we've talked about David, like, she's someone who can single-handedly elevate dog shit. Totally. And in this, she is so boring and lifeless. Everyone is bad.

The villains... No. The whales. The whales. The whales are fun. The whales are good. The whales are good, but everyone had told me the whales were good. I skipped the show when it aired years ago.

And I remember at the time, people being like, the whales kind of feel like classic Star Wars magic. I got to the whale sequence in the season. And I was like, that was good. But if you're telling me that's the high watermark and I have four episodes left to go, I'm terrified. I agree with you. The whales are like the one chunk that I felt a little something. Anyway, that's my, that's my Star Wars ran over.

Also, Asoka's basically not the lead character of that show. She's dead for half the season. Not dead. She's in the fucking... She's in the fucking... She's in the Annequinverse. Right. She's in the limbo, the Anakinverse. It's just everyone.

I'm being like, we gotta find Ezra. Have you watched Skelton Crew yet? I'm watching it ready. That one at least has energy. What? Did they renew Skeleton?

No. That's a one of done. That was a one of done. Asoka's the only thing that's coming back. And they've announced and that'll be the end of it. Like, it's over.

And then Faloni will be shot in the middle of times. Probably. Everyone forgets. But they announced that Faloni was going to direct a movie that was the culmination of all the team.

That's what I mean. I think he thought that was happening. That was happening. And I think there was a little bit of, we've changed our priorities. Let's just put Grogu on a screen. Right. And see what happens. John directs that.

We're sorry. We'll let you make Asoka season two to wrap up those threads. Yeah. I honestly think they should just let him. Just not for theaters, but like in Disney put, let him make whatever crazy fucking movie he wants to make where he brings back all of them through AI. Like, you know, Luke, Leah, Khan. No, he wants to do this.

Let's be real. And he wants to correct everything that he thinks they did wrong in the sequel series of like these guys should have been fighting together and they should be fighting Thrawn, I guess. Like, let him make this of shit. Yes, right.

Like a YouTube fan movie. It's in, on the Disney Plus episode, it's in a garbage can. You have to like lift up the lid. And they're like, really? And you're like, yeah, what's in there? They're like, all right, we'll get it out for you. It's like covered in banana peels.

If you press play, the fucking effort. FBI breaks down your door. It's just a spinning wheel. It just turns into a question mark and it's like, come on. That wasn't going to exist. Chris Hanson shows up. Oh, so you decided to watch the Faloni movie.

You watch the Faloni movie and in the blink of an eye. Look, what's going on with you? We will talk about this. I'm like two months prior to this. But yeah, I do wonder if they have like a Hail Mary guy, like the James Gun D.C. thing. Kathy has retired. Philoni.

We're winding down with Flonny. He's going to go to some cartoon world. Faloni is in charge of the whole thing. I know. But after Mando does poorly, do they go like, you know, we want a new steward and it's, but then I don't know who the answer to that question is. I mean, I think I know the answer, which is,

it's, they already announced, Simon Kimberg is sort of like overseeing. That ain't it, my friends. Let's do it again. But they're like, Faloni is in charge of operations, which I also think is partially being like, maybe, maybe you don't write in direct. the stuff as much anymore.

And that Simon Kimberg's the guy who's sort of like, you got to figure out the movie problem. Everything is really good over that. In the blink of it. So, In The Interstent does all this TV. I know the two movies that he came close to making, the one was Revolver. Is that correct, Sims?

All right, well, let me just continue. Yeah, he was going to remake it. Okay, so Stanton, just to note, he is on the Pixar senior creative team. He was the narrative guru for, literally credited it is, as the narrative guru for Ralph Breaks the Internet. Hey, Ben.

Okay, okay. Good work. Because this is where once Disney has bought Pixar, they start to send the Pixar brain trust out to other projects at the other tendrils to give advice. Toy Story 4, he is a writer. Alongside Stephanie Folsom.

So he created Forky, so obviously he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for that work. It was in that same recent piece. Toy Story 4 was originally announced as a John Lasseter movie. Weirdly enough, Rashida Jones was writing it with her partner, Wilm McCormick, her writing partner. It was the Woody Bo Peeper Union movie, but a very different version of it that didn't work for years and years and years, and they kept pushing it back.

And then Lasseter steps down, hands off directing Lassiter, lots of Huggin Lassiter, is pushed out of Pixar entirely. And they basically go to Stanton. And they're like, can you take a crack at this? Toy Story 4 is a disaster. And we cannot cancel it because there is so much money tied up. in the idea of marketing and merchandising and the promise to our shareholders that we will have another Toy Story movie. And as he put it, he like, you know, locked himself in a room and within like six

hours was like, I think I know what the movie is. That he is the toy story genius and he is the one who can constantly. Yeah, that's what they, what's he and Joss Whedon did all those years ago, right? Yes. When the first one was a disaster and then they locked themselves in a room. Right. And Joss Whedon was gone after like a week and then he continued to just fix everything. And that, yes, he came up with Forky, right? He wins the Nobel. I mean, his first big take was like, Bo coming back. And okay, if three was the end of Andy's story, should four be kind of like, well, then what does Woody do now? The other thing he said,

which I think is real genius with the Toy Story stuff, is the problem they kept budding against with Toy Story 4. And I've read at least one or two of the scripts that have floated around for the canceled Toy Story 4. They were like, well, we want to tell a love story. We want to make a rom-com. We want to make a movie about, like, Bo and Woody getting back together. And people kept writing movies where they were like, this has nothing to do with them being toys. You're just writing a romance between two characters who happen to be toys. And Stanton's always been like, you have to start from the perspective of what are the experiences that are unique to them? And he was just like, well, like, how do Woody and Bo Peep get split up? What is uniquely

traumatizing about that that would be connected to them being a toy? Oh, Bo gets donated because the sister has a different relationship to her toys than Andy does, yada, yada, yada, and then the story comes from there. David, I've been traveling all summer. That's true. And thank the Lord, I brought AG1 with me.

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Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com slash disclosures for details. May 2020, he was attached to something called Chairman Spaceman, which is a adaptation of a Thomas Pierce short story that was published in The New Yorker that he was going to do for, well, Simon, Kimberg's genre films for Searchlight, which is about a corporate raider who renounces his wealth and signs up for an interplanetary mission to colonize the solar system. I don't know, sounds somewhat interesting. It sounds like in the blink of an eye is sort of like the other heady sci-fi script that he then got going. Correct. These were the two. So he jumped to that one. Yes. And obviously Hulu Searchlight, all owned by Disney, who owe Stanton for the billions and billions of dollars. He was made them.

Right. But he put it as like, those were the two things I was really serious about and in the blink of the eye came together a little faster. Revolver is Revolver.

Revolver, a romantic coming of age comedy starring Ethan and Maya Hawk written by a stranger thing writer, Kate Treffrey. She's the one who ended up writing

the Stranger Things Broadway play. Ah, of course, in which we saw the first shadow. The first shadow. That's right. And to explain the floor thing in that one? Well,

stages traditionally have a floor. Exactly. Does Vecna live in a theater? Is it Bechna that has a floor? Inside your stomach? Inside Vecna Davis. Yeah, there is a flat floor and people are just walking around. Hardwood.

Right. Yeah, exactly. Mald wall carpet. It was... Be careful the spikes. Oh, are there spikes? Because there are spikes. The tummy spikes.

They'll get you. You watch the finale. This is how they kill Vecta. Right. They got Vecta. They, that fucker. Throw them into a big spike. Recession?

Did you do? You know, it was the craziest fucking thing in the world? He wasn't a big fan of gay people. Oh? So that was why he was after Will all those years. And I am, that's barely a joke. That is basically what they imply in the last season, among many other things. It is so insane that people dislike that ending so much that within a week they were like, no, no, no, no.

There's another episode. The ending's bad on purpose. Because it's an augmented reality experience. It's meta-textual and there's a secret episode that's coming out. They would never just whiff this this hard earnestly. A revolver, it's a 60s set thing in which Maya Hawk is a teenager in Anchorage, Alaska, and a flight from to Japan carrying the Beatles is forced to stop in Anchorage, and she decides to fuck George Harrison.

That is her goal. That is the plot of the movie. That is her goal. She, Stanton wanted to make that for like five years eventually. It just never happened. Now, Colby Day, the writer of this movie, who also wrote, wrote Space Man on Netflix, right? A movie I like a lot. Yeah.

He starts writing in the blink of a night when living in New York in the mid-2010s. He goes to the planetarium. I heard of it. In the Hayden Planetarium and Museum Natural History. And, you know, they've got a big map of the timeline of the universe. It's a, you know, it's a cool place to go. Big Bang and blah, blah, blah. And he said,

it gave me an existential crisis. Which that can happen when you start thinking about the vastness of the universe. So he's like, I think when you start to zoom out and you think about what does it mean to be here for not that long, you start to find the meaning of life. He wanted to talk about the idea that even if we don't get much time, the things we do ripple through it. So he's trying to reassure his own anxiety. That's certainly what this movie is about. Yeah. So he's like, you know, initial concept is just that he wanted to write about time.

So the initial story began with the big bang, the first thing. in time. Right, kind of the ultimate prequel. He also was much more rigid about moving from past to present to future in that order. But I think Stanton pushes it more to, like, be fluidly jumping between them all, you know, not like his three segments. This movie was in development for years. It also, you know, from the time that Stanton came attached to the script, was it a blacklist script? It was on the blacklist list in, like 2016, I want to say?

Yes. Yes, it was on the blacklist in 2016, number six. But, you know, you get put on the blacklist. Everyone comes to calling, but they're also like, by the way, we have to change everything. Right. Or whatever. Stanton read the script years later, though. Mm-hmm.

And was like, I'm jealous of whoever wants to try and make this, realizes no one's making it, and decides to jump on board. He calls Colby and says, you love Cloud Atlas as much as I do. do. And Colby Day says, yeah, I do. I love story circles. That was my goal, was doing a kind of a cloud-atlasy thing. Stanton also loves the fountain, another movie I would say, that is trying this kind of thing. And he likes a triptych, he says. He's like, you know, you go to the roots of all that, and there's something deep of all of us connect to about trifectas. Of course, he might be thinking about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I don't know. Famous Tripecta.

Father, son, Holy Ghost. So he starts revising. I don't know. I mean, this is... I'm gonna, I'm gonna be honest with you guys. It's pretty boring. Obviously, it's super Cloud Atlas E. Yes.

It is kind of like a very small scale, if you could call it that, or not small scale isn't right, but a like a very, a more intimate version of Cloud Atlas. It's like, what if we did what Cloud Atlas is trying to do? but we really... Yes, it's very... ...tone it down to just these, like, three or so, like, core relationships. And a kind of really clean line of cause and effect.

This is sort of one narrative thread that's touched in three different arrows. Yes. And very, just very small lives. Like, in each of these... I mean, yes, he is placing them in a canvas where it's like, look how huge they're... The impact of...

these small lives actually is, but they are, you know, pretty modest little stories. Modest is a good way to put him, to put it. This was announced in October 2020. It was shot in 2023 and then just sort of was in stasis for three years. I've obviously wanted to do Stanton forever. So from the moment this movie was announced, I was like, well, when this comes out, we'll cover him.

And then it kept on getting like knocked down the schedule. And it is ideal that this and Toy Story. are coming out so close together and we can do a series that doesn't end on this movie and that has the contrast to both of them in the same year. I did not,

like this movie went to Sundance and was, I would say, critically ravaged and then has gone to Hulu with basically like no impact whatsoever. I had, you know, after the snowstorm

canceled the premiere, I was like, words not great. I'm going to have to watch this for the podcast. If I watch it now, will I even remember it by the time we record?

Let me just hold off until it's actually time to do this episode. And so I've been dreading it. I did not dislike this movie. I cannot say I liked it. But I felt a little more neutral on it than I was expecting with how negative the word was. I think, Joey, you and I are maybe in a slightly similar space of like, nothing really works for me. But there wasn't anything I bumped on too hard.

And I like what it's trying to do, even if I don't think it gets there. It's a fart sandwich, but it's a sandwich. This is Ben's review is that it's a fart sandwich. But he's just upset that he didn't get to voice the AI friend. I think the movie would have been a lot more fun if Kate McKinnon's AI friend had been voiced by you. Ben would have been very good. You did voice the AI. I spent the whole movie for some reason thinking that some narrative connective tissue they were doing was that the AI was voiced by Rashida Jones.

It sounded as not Rashida Jones. It's like some random actress. It's a little confusing. But although I don't, yeah, I don't know what that would have meant. Anyway, my experience was like, in the first 20 minutes or so, especially the very start of the movie, I was like, oh boy. Because it starts with like the Sylvia Plath quote, you know, remember, remember this is now and now and now. And you're like, oh, boy. And then we open in, you know, like 45,000 BC with cavemen making sparks.

And again, you're like, oh, all right. Obviously, if you're going to be invoking 2001 A Space Odyssey, you've got to be careful. That's the best science fiction film. So you're inviting quite a comparison there if you're going to be doing that. So obviously, so intensely. So you're starting with that, and then you're going into these two other, introducing us to these two other stories, the Rashida Jones and DeVee Diggs. in the present day,

and she's a research scientist, and they're flirting at college. Yes. She's a doctoral candidate in anthropology. She do bones. And then Greg, question mark, from statistics. Right.

It's cute. Right. Two actors, I like a lot. They are... What is that face you're making? I'm trying to think what I like Rashida Jones in, like... Of late. I... I like her in this movie.

But we'll get there. She's all right in this movie. Sure. I mean, I found this movie just kind of inert. That was my, like, I was not, like, raging about this. Like, oh, my God, this is, but it just felt like, low energy. I mean, it's completely my thought. Like, complete my thought. Then you're introduced to the middle. And then you're introduced to Kate McKinnon in the future. And she's on a spaceship. And she's on a mission to, like, save humanity by taking all of these, like, new babies in a bag. Babies in a spaceship to a new home. And I think. For the first, like, 20, 30 minutes, you're just like, wow, this is, like you said, David, this is very low energy. This is very inert. It's cross-cutting between all of them really quickly. Right. And you're like, you are taking me right into cross-cutting between three stories, and they all seem pretty boring.

It's got a little bit of the Asoka thing of like it feels like the tone of this is quote-unquote serious, right? And I also think it's not even, you know, Cloud Atlas opens like this where you're weaving between all them really quickly as they're setting. it up. The Cloud Atlas has twice as many threads, and they're further apart. They're not as thematically linked in an apparent way from the get-go. And then after the first, like, three or four minutes, which is also more symphonic and stylized, it settles down into like, we will focus on one for, right, and then go to the others to situate. The first, like, 25 minutes of this just continue to just keep ribboning in a way where you're like, the energy and the pacing are pretty low and slow.

Well, it's like you're going to, okay, you've gone right into we're jumping between these, but you never, but you didn't first establish like here's why you should care about any of them. And like, right,

the prehistoric one is like, you know, it's, it's nonverbal. They speak in, it's very much him doing like a hot, Huttonese,

I believe that. It's like a quest for fire, you know? It is, it is actors in prosthetics. Yeah, because they're Neanderthals. So they, you know, or they're paleolithic people of some sort.

But it's about the meeting of, right. Yes, Cromagnon and, yeah. And right, then there's the present set, graduate school section. But I was going to say, I like both of these actors a lot. It is an interesting casting choice to hire two people who are decades older than the characters they're playing. Yeah, you know, I was just watching The Wizard of the Kremlin, the hottest movie of 2026, which is a movie that begins with Paul Dano. playing his character when he's like 18 years old.

And he's like, I'm at college. And I was just like, just don't show me this. Like, I just, I can't buy this. And it's taking me out of the movie right away. It's the L.M.K. thing for me where I'm like... In fact, every good recent example. Where I'm like...

As we know, we're all teenagers right now. And you're like, okay, Ella. But also, it's like, cast for the age, the character is going to spend the majority of the movie. Yes, exactly. This movie jumps ahead. Eventually, we get to... a point where DeVee Diggs and Rashida Jones are playing their own age, but I'd say it's a

pretty short chunk of the movie. Yeah, because by that point, the movie is moving along time-wise quite fast. And then it even goes beyond that to them with old age makeup. So you're like, you know, 60% of their screen time is them in their 20s. Yes. And they are 44 and 50s. They are. I mean, look, they're good-looking people.

They've aged really well, and I thought the graduate school stuff. But I didn't totally buy Rashida Jones. is like, I'm just getting started in grad school. There is like... With my bones. I think what is actually pretty fucking effective CGI de-aging on the two of them that I noticed was very subtle.

And a lot of that is there are two people with very good genes who have aged very well. But there is like an energy thing of you just feel the two of them playing 20-something in a way that feels a little school play at times. It makes it confusing how much time is going right. It does. Because I couldn't really...

I'm like hearing you say she's in. her 20s makes a lot more sense to me now. Well, because also it's like you can obviously be in your mid-40s and go to graduate school. So you watch it and you're like, I'm not immediately rejecting that Regina Jones could be in this program, but the longer it goes on, you're sort of like, I think she's supposed to be like 27. You know, there's sort of context clues that develop. And then there's the Kate McKinnon section, which is right. She is on a spaceship by herself with an AI friend.

The year 2417. Right. So it's like 400 years in the future. And yeah, she's got an AI that is pretty... Roscoe. Pretty, I would say, like, personable. It's not a howl is actually like conversational and feels friendly and human in its tone, its demeanor. But she's basically in isolation.

It's a very kind of Wally setup of you're alone on a spaceship looking for the planet that is inhabiting. where life could restart. There's no like, and this is deliberate, but there's no like great tension to her mission because I believe they've identified the planet. They know where she's going. They're terraforming it. They have a whole plan.

She's just got to get there. It should be done by the time I get there, but that's happening. That's not my job. Yes, she is dealing with a problem, which is that there's something's gone wrong in the ship's systems, but it's all played pretty,

all played pretty low-key and they are also very they really drip out the information in a way that I actually kind of liked about like what her deal is I was going to say right the big mystery is like how is she alive and like because she's not going to go in hyper sleep like how is she going to just the thing is though is like they keep stressing like she's doing this

for a hundred and blah years I've rewatched it and it's flies over your head you rewatched this movie well I'm saying I just skip to see the the intro of each character. It says longevity enhanced pilot. Oh, does it say that? I did not notice that.

I think I did. I don't know. I just, I mean, one of her first pieces of dialogue is something about like, oh, how many years do I have until we get there? Right. And with the suggestion of the way she's saying it of, like, me, you know, not like my kids, like me. So you're like, okay, there's something going on with you.

I'm just going to, let's just say the thing, right? This movie is about humanity. identifying basically the cure for death. Right? Like scientifically identifying. The way to stop aging. Yes. But not like you're immortal.

You will eventually, she will, yeah, we see her getting old at the end. You will eventually die. You will age very slowly. Beyond, right. Curing illnesses, we have like identified a way to combat the gene that causes the degradation of aging, you know, and to slow it down to the real crawl. Well. Well, I mean...

So the movie is very sketchy about a lot of details. And again, in a way that I didn't entirely hate, one of the things that is kind of left to our imagination unless I miss something is that she is doing this mission to find us a new home because our current home, presumably Earth, is no longer habitable. But what is left vague is, did that just happen naturally? No. I got the impression it was because people stopped dying

in that created a huge. overpopulation issue. And that created like havoc. Yeah. But they don't really get into it. But she says like we decided that people should not actually stop aging. Like when she's talking to the kids about it. It's definitely the most interesting scene in the movie.

I think everything about that scene, I, first of all, I think McKinnon's good in this movie. She is. She's, yeah. She's, yes. Yes. She's the assignment. There were moments with her when I was moved by. Like on I, the first moment in.

the movie after it was kind of going by very glacial and I was like, oh boy. The first moment where I like locked in a little bit is when she has to turn off the AI, her AI friend. And she's like, turns it off and then she's like, you know, she's like, you were my only friend. And then it's like sad about it. And I don't know, just because she played it so well. I was like, oh, okay. I'm feeling something there.

I agree. This is my biggest take with the film. And I understand, you know, this whole movie generates from thinking about the big bang and the ripple of time. and these story circles and, you know, all of that. And, like, the whole movie should have been McKinnon. I'm like, this is the interesting story. And actually, the reveals that are interesting within her story are deflated somewhat by the other two narratives.

That's it. You're right. You're right. Because, like, the other two narratives just are pretty useless. They are. They are. They really are. And they're, you know, they're little moments.

They're little flourishes and touches. But when you actually step away from the movie and especially when it doesn't really connect all of its threads until the end and go. like this is what's fucking been going on the whole time. That fucking nut. The nut. The acorn. That's not out of here.

Some scratch-esque shit. I would possibly get the nut out of here. Yes. But you're just sort of like the whole interesting story is the Cape McKinnon thing. And actually, if you remove the other two narratives and you're slowly realizing what's going on with her, the same doling out of information gradually,

but it not being supplanted by the other two, that's the movie that feels like it has a little more intrigue to it. I like this implication that it's basically like we're watching sort of the turning point of humanity the sort of notion of the two species and one outlived the other and this was the merging of them

and this is sort of the missing link sort of moment and then Rashida Jones is trying to she has discovered the remnants of this missing link what's the character's name it's not Thorke or thog It's Thorne and Hira.

Yes. If you look on IMDB as something I really like is Thorne is played by someone who is primarily like a stunt performer and a physical performer. Jorge Vargas.

His photo on IMDB is just him as a Power Ranger. His face is not even visible. It's fucking awesome. And Tanya Beatty, who's an actor. It's an awesome picture. It's just a full body

Power Ranger. Bauer Ranging. Yes. Tonight Bady is an actor I really like, yes, who plays his wife. But, yeah, you're seeing this sort of like, this is where humanity kind of starts, right?

Then Rashida Jones has recovered the remnants of this guy and believes, like, this missing link might help us understand where we came from, understand our own DNA more in a way that could lead to the breakthroughs of curing diseases, this and that. While this is happening, is dying rapidly from a very aggressive form of a terminal cancer. She is starting this sort of relationship with David Diggs, who clearly is all in on her, and she's kind of keeping him at arm's length, A, because she's so focused on her work,

and B, because she's got the burden of caring for her mother, and she's sort of like, I don't know if I can take this on. And you're watching this developing relationship where she's keeping him in a distance, then she drops out of school to go B with her mother, so the relationship is mostly happening over Zoom. You know, she's in isolation there, and he's committed to her and eventually, you know, they, he comes, he moves in with her, they get married, they have kids, and you realize that their son,

who they homeschooled and they raise in the grand tradition of science, is able to build on his parents' work and what she studied to actually crack the code. To cure death. So the whole time of this, of their story, yes. You're a part of you is wondering, like, what the hell is this?

The fuck. Nothing is happening. Well, like, your introduction. You finally get. When you get to the end, you're like, okay, the overarching idea he is like here is that she and she's especially, but and DeVeed are like, they were just another little step. The link in the chain. Along the chain. And she asked the moment, can you believe we made him?

Yes. The guy who cures death. There is something as their relationship, Rashida and David, like, as I gradually settled into, I was like, okay, this is just what this is going to be. the whole movie, this, like, very quiet, you know... He's the most patient, understanding, gentle. Mostly over video calls, which is kind of a crazy choice for a movie. But as I settled into it, I was like, okay, there are some nice moments. There's a very lovely moment where they're just sitting together on,

standing together on the phone silently while she's sitting by her mom in bed. And it's a wordless scene. And, like, there are little moments. like that where you're like, okay, that was, that was good. He is a very good visual storyteller. And even a movie like this that can't quite find itself, there will be moments like that where something kind of interesting and specific is conveyed. Right.

And where you feel a sense of what he's going, what they're going for with their dynamic of like, they're so in love. And like, despite all these problems they have in the fight she has, and like at one point she tries to break up with him, it just kind of like doesn't come to anything because he's just like, no, like, you love me. I love you.

Like, we're going to be together forever. I think that's kind of fun where she's really trying to break up with him because she's just like, this isn't fair to you. It doesn't matter that I'm in love with you. And then he starts laughing and he's like, I got you to admit that you're in love with me. It speaks to the weird writing style of the movie that in that particular scene is kind of charming where it's like, you think this is about to be a dramatic moment.

And then it's not because he's just like, no, enough of that. The key thing here is kind of. Kinda. Kind of. Now, let's say. I just want to say something right now. Jorge Bargas, played Blake. Bradley, aka the Navy Thunder Ranger in Power Rangers Ninja Storm.

I'm glad you've been doing a deep dive on this while when I talk about the movie. Who is the Blue Ranger, but it's just funny how, like, at the start, they're like, yeah, we got a Blue Ranger, we got a Green Ranger, and now they're like, he's the Blue, the Navy Thunder Ranger. Like, so we had that, like, kind of Land's End style colors, descriptions. Yes. But he's in 36 episodes.

Hey. Like, and it's him. Yes. Like, his human faces seen, too. that's all. I don't have any more... Do you want me to get more news for you on Ninja Storm Rangers? No, what I was going to say is... Maybe I will anyway, though.

If you remove the other two plot lines... Yes. I'd love to. And just sort of unpack, like, this is what happens in the Kate McKinnon plot line, right? She is a woman who is on a spaceship by herself. Her only connection seems to be this AI robot. And she's, like, holding on to hundreds, thousands of embryos. Yes. in bags.

Right. You grow them in bag. That she is trying to protect while also having a sort of sunshine-esque green room to be able to provide oxygen for the ship. There is a fungus breakout.

There is not going to be enough oxygen for her to get to the planet that's being terraformed. There's sort of the mystery of like, why is this one woman in isolation carrying so many embryos to repopulate humanity by herself?

and you have this sort of, I don't know, a bit of a trolley car problem, but not really of, there's not enough oxygen to get her there. She's like, I should kill myself. Your AI, you can handle the mission on your own. All that's important is that the embryos get to this planet and you can sort of activate everything. And the AI sacrifices itself to be like, you need a human being with like reasoning and feelings and the X factor of human experience. you know, it shouldn't be done by a machine.

And so the AI basically convinces Kate McKin to deactivate it so that they can use the extra room to plant more to create a second supply of oxygen. Because they have to isolate the have a separate room with the plant life isolated so that it doesn't also get disease. All of this is kind of like a runaround where I was sort of like, the fuck, where are we going with this? Until the moment, as you said, where I think McKininin plays really well, the loss of, like, oh, this was the only connection she had to something that even felt like humanity was speaking to this computer. And now she's got to do the rest of this mission alone. And she activates the one child that she can, like, raise and have a relationship with. And she starts talking to her.

And then you realize, like, this is the last human being alive. We, like, killed ourselves with overpopulation. She is functionally, if not literally, immortal, close to it. And as she's raising this child, she explains this thing, but I think is the best scene in the movie that both in terms of being well-performed and well-written, but also the ideas of it being so interesting of, we solved the thing that felt like the great tragedy of humanity, our own mortality. And in fact, we realized this is not good.

It's not good, not only did it just, like, fuck us up infrastructurally as a species, but also, like, people shouldn't live this long. It actually sucks. It's a curse and it's a burden, and we're restarting humanity. You will age normally. We're going to go to a new planet.

We're going to try to do. get it right, and I'm the last freak alive, trying to, like, reset everything. It is important, though, that the company that did this to us is also the company that is now in charge of the ship. Right. This is where the movie trips up and also is very, like, not built for our, for this moment, is that it lands in this very optimistic play. You could argue about whether it's optimistic, because, of course, the happy ending that we see is

preceded by the collapse of civilization. Well, you're like watching the son's breakthrough as he gives the press conference to reveal that he's cured death at the same time as Kate McKinnon is basically explaining, this was a mistake, it fucked everything up, and now we're trying to reset everything back to how it was. You will age normally. And so you have, like, DeVeed Diggs and Rashida Jones being like, can you believe it? Our son changed the world.

And Kate McKinnon being like, the world's a nightmare. And now I have to try to do a hard. reboot. Right, but then they're trying to the mood of the thing, this is what you're saying is that that is all a disconnect from the mood. The mood of the thing is very much like, but we figure it out.

You know, like we figure, we realize we made a mistake and now we're pulling back and you know, we figured out a new way and that's what you're seeing with this Kate McKinnon storyline. And then alongside that, also she has this lovely AI friend

who is like really nice and like helps her with everything, but and who, and who the AI gives voice to like, no, humanity is the most important thing. And like having you, having your X factor of being a human, that is the most important thing, more important than me. And not to like place other things that are like going on in the world right now. But you do. You can't avoid it.

And I'm watching that scene. I'm like, well, let's a little bullshit. Like, that's not what, that's not like reflective of, that is not what we're learning and seeing about how these technologies operate. That's just you fantasizing about like, oh, but maybe one day it will be like that. We have the opposite issue, which is like AI convincing people to kill themselves, not AI being like, I should deactivate so humanity can persist. Right.

So I was just like, it's the whole like. And Stan was out. I read an interview with him with him where they were asked about this and they were like, it takes a very like optimistic view. And his answer was just like, well, what else can you do? but just have hope and have optimism. And I was like, well, that's a lame answer, though. I find his worldview really interesting in general because it feels like he is a guy,

and I relate to this really hard, where he is, like, there is a constant fight between, like, an overriding cynicism and, like, an attempt at optimism that he, like, doesn't want to drown in the cynicism, even though it's its innate state. And there is a sort of, like, sappy emotionality to him that he's a little bit embarrassed by, right? And I think that's a lot of, like, the Toy Story Magic. comes from that sensibility. It feels like this movie puts the thumb down too hard on the optimism, even when it's

doing something that is a little bit ominous. And it's trying to, like, create the friction between, like, well, here's this amazing accomplishment in human existence that we have this breakthrough, but also we're watching the business end of what was a mistake by it. But then the optimism is, but they're going to fix it eventually. I guess so. But that's why the end of the movie is really odd. We're like, wow, I can't believe we made him.

And I'm like, history's greatest killer. Like, it seems like he maybe was. This was a mistake and this was a curse. And I'm like, I sort of don't need to know about that guy. It's more interesting to just spend time with Kate McKinnon, the one person who's the representative of why this was a mistake, you know? And especially her doing that nice sleep. But it's also like interesting to me. I also think, I think like there was a review I read at Sundance that was critiquing her casting and saying like her sort of what they just

as her finger guns comic energy is an ill match for this movie. And then I was like, oh, is she going to be doing like Ghostbusters? No, not at all. No, I think she's giving like a good dramatic performance, but I think her being... It's a little to date.

Her being a comedian gives her more energy than any of the other performers in the movie, even though she's playing it straight. She has a little bit of that off-wire energy, which I think helps. I think it could have helped to have more of the casting beyond those lines. I think if you're going to have a character,

in the future make him talk weird. She loves shit like that too. You mean like do a Cloud Atlas thing like the true true? Yeah, come on. She's kind of doing her like cowboy kind of, you know, Kate McKinnon sort of thing. Here's what I can tell you. Ninja Storm was the 10th.

Okay, this is. Power Rangers series. Uh-huh. The one before was Wild Force, which I guess they turned into like animals, like lions and eagles and stuff. And the one after, a one we all know well, is Dino Thunder. where they were just like, fuck it, they're dinosaurs.

Again, I guess. I don't know. Because the originals are kind of dinosaurs. Ninja Storm, though, they were ninjas. Ninjas. I tell you. There's a Red Wind Ranger. Are they ninja dinosaurs? No. Just regular old ninja. That's kind of interesting.

There's a more interesting. And I was like, do they have Zordon? And it's like, no, they have a sensei who gets turned into a guinea pig. So it's going into G-Force territory? No, it sounds possible. I think there is a more interesting. version of like passengers in this with her activating

the one embryo so is not to be alone and go crazy. I don't think I even really clocked if you're reading is right that that was a thing where she like was going against the mission or anything. I thought that was just part of the mission. The other part of it is like now she needs help because she doesn't have the AI. I think that was

part of the plan. Yes. But then it's like she's forming this emotional relationship that wasn't part of the plan because she needs that and in raising a child now and actually like kind of being a mother in a way she wasn't supposed to be. And this movie ends with, a scene I think Kate McKinnon also performs well of

her holding the funeral for this child on the reborn earth. She has barely aged. You know, she looks like five years older. And it's like, she succeeded in the mission, but like her curses that she also now has

to like... Just to watch her kids die. Right, and she's like... They lived a long life. She wasn't really my child. You know, I'm not technically her mother more so than any of you But she's the one I felt the most connected to. These are interesting, heady ideas. I feel like the movie shies away from ever getting too emotional, getting too kind of like worked up about any of it.

And so at the end, I was kind of like, yeah, okay. It's just the one idea I like is, yeah, if we could live forever, it would suck. Sure. It would cause a thousand problems. My favorite show, New Amsterdam, when they like Costa Waldo, remember? Yeah, of course. He was old. Yes.

But young. Wasn't there also a different Yoan Gruffet one where he was... That one was where every time he dies, he wakes up in the East River or something. And it was called like Eternal or Forever. Right.

Uh-oh. It was that he would like ground hug day but the next day. It was called forever. It was called forever. Right. I can tell you if he's close to him out. The day wouldn't reset.

He would just be reborn. He was in the East River again. So I guess it's a little being John Malkovich where they would just spit him out. What I liked about New Amsterdam was like in the pilot, he like meets with like an old man

who's his son. And he's the old man's like, wow, you really don't fucking age, shoot. And he's like, yeah, it's my thing.

Off to solve a mystery. Because that's the best thing about all network shows shows. He's immortal. Fascinating. And he solves mysteries. They're like, don't worry.

He solves mysteries. Don't worry about it. There's an engine. Yes. Yeah. You know, the ideas are interesting. I just,

I also find the design a little bland of the spaceship and all that, like, where I'm just like, it's just got this kind of vague apple-y, you know, sort of look to it that is not very distinctive. Her clothes, it's just like boring. It was another thing I called watching that movie,

Spaceman, which Colby Day Rose. Has a very different look. Has a look. Like, I found that movie also a little sleepy, but, like, that movie at least was very heady looking. I like that movie a lot. I think, re-watching Wally for the first time in a while,

it was interesting because that did feel new. The whole visual design language of Wally, both the sort of busted, rusted, old, by and large stuff, and then when you get to the axiom and making everything that Apple influenced, you know, it's a year before Star Trek, which does the similar redesign of, like, the enterprise is now kind of Apple store-coded and all of that. Now this has just sort of become the default language for what spaceships look like,

and it's not interesting to do and it feels like someone needs to like shake up the formula again. I mean, everything about the visuals in the movie. Nothing is bad. The movie looks fine but it's all just very like default and all very, I mean, that is all really all kind of summed up by the fact that for a score they were like,

I know Stanton has worked with him before. It's his number one guy. But they were like, call up Thomas Newman and have him deliver the same. He's saying, have him do the thing. That you've heard a million times. I've ever seen Quest for fire or clan of the cave bear. I recently watched Clan of the Cave Bear.

Tell me about it. Because I'm trying to watch, it's not very good. Okay. I'm trying to watch every 1986 film for the Big Picture 1986 draft. Oh, sure. Our inevitable, yeah. And I got to this point where I was sort of like, you know, at this point, I've probably seen most of the major films of 1986.

But then I was like, all right, well, what was nominated for an Oscar? Oh, sure. That I haven't seen yet. The answer was, one was Clown. of the Cape Bear, which got a makeup nomination. It was a gigantic bomb that film. A huge, huge bomb. It's Daryl Hannah plays a cavewoman. Yes. It's great

stuff. But coming off of Quest for Fire being a surprise hit. Exactly. They're like, we'll keep it with the caveman. You've also, I also watched Franco Zeparelli's adaptation of the opera Othello, which features Placito Domingo in makeup.

I was playing that one at work on my iPad, and I was like, hmm, I might have to turn this one off. Uh-huh. And I also watch Crimes of the Heart, which got three Oscar nominations. Bruce Bears for film. Fucking sucks.

What were they doing in the 80s? Bruce was, it's a weird career. Based on a play. Yeah. How does, go ahead. Is any of what we're talking about right now? How did we transition into it? I thought of a caveman or the cave bear.

This movie has a bit of a clan of a cave bear. Okay. All right. And in times of the heart, it's just a lot of Southern bells going like, oh, my mom, I never love me. I lost the, there was an 80s,

micro trend of we're going to try to make cavemen movie that are ostensibly a little more quote unquote accurate and no one's going to talk and it's sort of like a dramatized nature documentary sort of vibe. I mean sometimes this movie in a negative way

feels like a 30 minute film you would watch at a planetarium or something. Yeah, I mean a little bit. Right. It's very, very hard to do any version of that caveman thing that isn't that especially if you're going to decide to be accurate about it.

It's hard. It's hard to see them discover a whistle. Yeah. And be like, whoa. Yeah. I don't care. They should be do a caveman movie that's like Chris Nolan doing the Odyssey

where they're just like, hey, what's up? I'm Homer. Like, you know, Daddy. Can I... Sorry, one more tangent. I just watched the movie whistle. It's a horror movie. It came out of February.

You blew the whistle. That's not. Don't blow it. Great tagline. That was the tagline. That's actually really. really fucking good. Like, we're in a high school.

I'm jammed Daphne Kean from Logan. I'm, you know, I'm a little, got some drama. I'm bisexual, maybe. Blah, blah, blah.

What's this Aztec death whistle? Don't blow the fucking whistle. Like, what if I blew it? No, don't do it. I just love any movie where it's like, there's a scary whistle. And I'm like,

don't tell me someone blows it. And they're like, oh, no, they blow it, all right. Yeah, there is, it was not very good. Quest for Fire then leads to Conquest Iron Master. Iceman and Clan of the Cave Bear.

There were like five of them. Iceman wasn't about Bobby Drake? Not yet. We were too afraid. That's a Timothy Hutton and Fred Skepsy movie. Of course, the big two. Yes. But that's more of an unfrozen...

If someone figured out that I have a nervous tick where if anyone says two names on this podcast or three names, I just say, the big two immediately, because I think it's always funny. It's always funny. Oh, yeah. That was a...

he's, Timothy Hutton following up the Oscar win is the caveman who discovers fire and then he is frozen and then he is revived. It's like serious Encino Man. But it was, this was like a big trend for the era and these movies were popular. Quest for Fire certainly was like very well regarded. Clan of the Cavemare was such a huge bomb and probably ended the, uh, the whole thing. I would say the cave. No one has really dared to touch this in 30 years. It's a good point. So this Has caveman stuff? Yeah. Have there been any other recent caveman dramas?

Caveman? This, I'm looking on Wikipedia, the two recent ones they've mentioned are there's a French movie called A.O. The Last Hunter. Literally A.O. colon, the last hunter. And then there was the, I forget which Hughes brother directed it, Albert Hughes, Alpha, which is the Cody Chinat, McPhee, and a wolf. Right. For the listeners at home, Joey and I just share.

to look, knowing look as you were going through this tangent. Oh, sure. And then they had a new awakening. What was the Creed's sequel subtitle? The January 6th. The Crude Storm the Capitol. No, I don't know.

Cruz was one of those movies where it like... A new age. A new age. It came out on drive-ins only in like August 2020. They were like, there's a Cruz movie and Cuomo was like, theater staying close. I ain't opening for that. The Crudes, a new age. might have come close to Titanic's number of consecutive weeks

at the top of the box office. Because it had like four months where nothing else was coming out. Like Florida's open. Right. And you'd be like the crudes racked up another robust $5,000 to be number one at the box office this weekend. Yeah, look, in the blink of an eye, I found the caveman stuff like unsuccessful.

I found it, yes. That was the least successful. Again, as with a lot of the other elements, as with the other three elements of the movie, it like it gets to a thing right at the end where like where he's like where there's a baby that's been born right it's like oh it's about this dad is like oh he's like has this happy moment and then he dies

and again it's hitting at that same idea of like he was just a link on the chain and it's like okay all right I get that's I get it and that's sort of like the first man being born the first modern right but I'm like but that it was all for that I mean again I admire in a way the smallness of it. I'm like, you know, this is not the type of screenplay that exists anymore in that, in that sort of, in that smallness.

But our buddy Bilga had a good review of this movie, and he was sort of calling out, like, how much he admires the ambition of it. But when you make a film like this, you're, like, drawing those comparisons directly to 2001, which is a challenge, right? And he said, like, the other one this movie, like, really draws a line to is the Tree of Life in this sort of like, you know, the small interpersonal drama of today is linked to

our origins as a species and whatever. And there is something a little mathematical in the structure of this screenplay. I'm down to just what I'm saying of like, maybe this movie should just be all Kate McKinnon of like the need to have

the prehistoric section be an equal third of the story. It feels like a mistake to me where I'm like, this could be three scenes and it's an interesting addition to the movie, it doesn't need to have 30 minutes of screen time divided across the film because what's interesting about it can be conveyed very quickly. And it's the same way that like Tree of Life is like, you get one dinosaur scene. And it kind of shakes your system where you're like, whoa, there's a dinosaur scene in a Terrence

Malick movie. But he's not like, well, the dinosaur is an equal lead with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. These are the three narrative strains of this movie. More Dino, Westman. There was actually even a moment early in the movie where our main, I think he was our main, like, a guy from the Piliers times or whatever. The Navy Ranger. Yeah. The fucking Navy Thunder Ranger.

Navy Thunder. He, like, he falls as he's climbing. Yeah. And he, like, lands on a rock. And it's like, dunk. And then it cuts away from him. And I was like, did he just die? Like, was that the end?

Well, because I thought for a second, I was like, was that, like, the point of that being in this movie was just like, sometimes it's just like that. You're a guy. Blink of an eye. Blin'i. Blin'i. Blin'i'i. You're living in a seat. You fall.

You're dead. That's it. Yeah. But no. Then he gets up here. He actually gets hit by a bus later in the script where they cut that. I have to go to therapy. We should play the box office game.

Great. And Lord knows I need it. You do? Yeah. Tuesday therapy. Things have been changing. This is crazy, Griffin. Chich changes.

You got to keep it on Thursday. It's a one-off thing. No, it's usually Thursday. It's not like I'm playing fast and loose. I do it. Prime Presents. Perfect pairings. What pairs with Reacher on Prime?

Reaching for a sparkling punch delivered with Prime. It's an unbelievable feeling when you're enjoying a punch. At the same time, Reacher is enjoying punching people. Wow, he's still punching people. Entertainment meets fast delivery. It's on Prime. Well, the box office game, of course this film did not actually premiere in theaters, but we can still cover the box office of February 27th, 2026.

A bad weekend, a lot of theater closers, because of the snowstorm I imagine, or was this the week after that? This might be the week after that. I can't remember. Who knows? Yeah. What's important is that number one of the box office is a giant hit. It is Wuthering Heights? No.

Oh, fuck. That came out of Valentine's Day. Of course it did. No, it stars your friend and mine. Timothy Hitmaker Simons. I think he's the lead role. I haven't seen it yet. It's a sequel.

Horror film. It's Screen 7. I'm surprised you didn't see Scream 7. I didn't make the screening for reasons I can't remember, but probably my boss was like, you're not reviewing it, so I was kind of like not that motivated. And then the reviews were really bad. And I just was kind of like,

I think I might be waiting for Paramount Plus on this one. Like, because like I quite enjoy 5 and 6. I like the Scream franchise. But because this is actually, rejecting five and six. Sure. I wasn't too pulled in by like, We've got Nev Campbell.

I'm like, yeah, I've seen her in a screen movie before. Like, this isn't like a, oh, she's been missing. She wasn't in one of them. Well, congrats on not being a scab. Yeah, sure. Also, fuck Timothy Simons. No, I'm kidding. I assume, isn't he like a professor and they throw him out a window? I haven't seen it yet. Sounds good.

That sounds fun. Big hit. Did you see it, Joey Sims? No, I felt the same as as you. And I was also like, yeah, them. Who directed that? Oh, Williamson directed. Yeah. Yeah. Also not an incredible size. No. Number two at the box office.

Number two at the box office is my daughter's favorite film of 2026. No. Oh, goat. They play Roar Ball. I was thinking about the ball. Roar ball? Roar, isn't that the name of the... The movie? The movie. Tatum O'Neill movie where they live with Tiger.

Tipahedron. Where they were like... There were 10 to 12 Wyand Malling. Yeah. Most movies have a couple. Jan Da Bond had like half his scalper. Yeah, I was gonna say. Production was a wild success.

It only took five years and a minimum of three scalpsings. It's the most insane film ever made. No, I was thinking so much about horrible. Production ever made. Like, the movie's weird. It's weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's weird.

Yeah. No, the film was goat. Yeah. Joe, you didn't see? Goat, no. Made $103 million domestic. Very solid hit for Sony. Mm-hmm.

A movie I really enjoyed. I've seen it a few times. Yeah, I liked it. Okay. Yeah, okay. He plays basketball? No, he plays war ball, Joe. It's very different. It means that sometimes...

Warball? The court is ice and sometimes it's lava. That is true. Number three, the box office, a romantic drama adaptation of a novel. Is it the Colleen Hoover? It's... No, no, come on.

You said it was number one. It's called Reminders of You? No, no, come on. You said it was... Wuthering Heights. Sorry, sorry, sorry. A film that I quite liked. I do too.

And our buddy Allison... has the exact take I have on the movie, which is it's an adaptation of a 15-year-old reading the book in high school. Yeah, I agree. Did you see? Yeah, I quite like that. Yeah, I dug one of the heads. I have not stopped thinking about the shot where she goes back after her awful dad dies. And it like cuts to his light, Mark, and cuts to his dead body in the chair. And there's just like an insanely high pile of bottles of empty alcohol. I wonder what did it in. You know, it's hard to tell what the movie is saying there. No, I was just like, the excess of it, I was just like, hell yeah.

It's just funny to me when people are like, his movie's over the top. I'm like, yeah, it's going for that. That's sort of the idea. No, like, you're in high school and you read a great book. You know, one of the most important works of literature and it says, like, she walks in to find her father surrounded by bottles. And you're like, if you're 15, you imagine, oh, it's 8,000 bottles. There's a wall. there's a bone temple.

So what if? Number three, sorry, four at the box office, new this week. Yeah. Is a concert film centered around a band. I confess, I didn't know this existed. Was this a BTS movie? No. No.

You didn't know this existed. Is it a band I would know by name? This is a real band. A real band? Possibly. I think so. They're famous. Is it a K-pop band?

No, they're like a rock. I don't know. Are they rock? Yeah, alternative rock. electrobop. It's not Imagine Dragons. No, it's sort of like that. I mean, imagine them.

I'm trying to just think what this is. Oh, fuck. I wish I knew. I don't think Imagine Dragons. Anyone said that. Ben, Ben, Ben, what is this fan? What is it? Tell me what they are.

I don't, I know their name, but I don't actually know what the kind of music is. Wait, I can't see. Oh, for crying out loud. Come on, Ben. It's going over. Like, what, I don't know what their actual deal is. Jesus, I have no idea.

You just tell me. I don't think I know the band. All right, so the band is 21 pilots. That's very close to Imagine Dragons. I think it is. I agree with you. I just don't really,

what is their vibe? Ben laughed at me so much for saying Imagine Dragons. I was scared to guess 21 pilots. You should have guessed it. They're a little bit more of a fun, period. As far as I'm concerned. The movie is called 21 pilots

more than we ever imagine. Okay. It made $3.7 million dollars in its opening weekend. I would describe their vibe as imagine dragons. I'd say they're very... What's their song?

I don't know. I just know that there's a band called 21 pilots. That's where my knowledge ends. Same. And number five is another concert film, sort of. Not of a recent figure, but a deceased figure. Is this epic? Epic Elvis Presley in concert.

An incredible title. Which I did not get to see, but I was told was kind of rad. Yeah. I've heard it's great. We'll cover on Patreon whenever we do Buzz, Baz Luhrman. You've also got number six, a movie that I wanted to love. and thought was, okay. Crime 101.

Oh, sure. I need to watch that. Fine 101. Yeah. That was your letterbox. Yeah, it's pretty good. Probably did numbers. Here's a twist.

I'm going to let you finish the episode. Okay, you know what? I'll see you later. Get out of here. Go away. You gotta go. I'll tell you the next. I can only imagine two.

Yeah. What's that? That's based on a song the guy wrote about his dad not being nice. And this is the sequel where the songs a hit. The dad's like, I just don't know if I want to be a nice guy.

That's pretty good. I'll check it out. Number 8, Sam Ramy's Great Send Help, which you saw that. You saw that, right? Of course. Great movie. Number nine, how to make a killing. The fairly bad, A-24, Glenn Powell remake of Kind Hearts and Cornets. Number 10, Zutopia 2.

Hanging out for its like fourth month. Highest grossing film in 2025. Highest grossing film in 2025. Yeah, you've also got Solo Mio there number 12. That's the Kevin James Wants a Wife movie. Griff's going to therapy. He is going to therapy. He's out of here.

Wow. Maybe Joey should take over. What should we do? A coup? Sure. Has this ever happened before? I've done it before. This has never happened.

I have left because we went for, you know, four hours about fucking cabbage patch kids or whatever. Sure. But I don't think Griffin's ever left before. There was the time he threw up. Yes. But he came back. Left, threw up came back.

No, he's normally the one who... Who makes it too long. Makes it too long. Shows up late. Yes. You know what? Let's hear some grievances. Let's talk about.

What else we got? So this is kind of, yeah, in unique position. We've never been here before. Yeah. I have to see Mortal Kombat 2 in an hour. I'm going later this evening. But I'm very excited.

Do you have work? I'm talking to my brother. No, I have a few hours. I'm going to maybe try to hang out with Lane. Lane Montgomery. Lane Montgomery. Friend of the show. Composer of the theme song

and prior past the future guest. Your former roommate. My former roommate. We've been looking for a time to grab like a late lunch. So I'm going to see. But he may have been held up at work. It's unclear.

So no. And then tonight I'm seeing Giant on Broadway. The play with the role doll, not so nice. Roaldol, anti-Semi,

John Lithgow play. You excited? Get that one in. Did he sound excited? Get that one in. Did he get the non- They got Tony Don't. I'm excited to see him.

We love to see John Lithgow take on a big mammoth role on Broadway. Who doesn't? The play, from what I've heard is, I don't know. I'm not that excited by that. Now, but Trumpty Dumpty. Right. So it is, after the giant concludes, then we all remain in the theater. The doors are locked and John Lithgow reads the entirety of Trumpty Dumpty.

Do you know about Trumpty Dumpty? Are you aware that Don Lithgow wrote a New York Times bestseller called Dumpty? which was a series of comical nursery rhymes about Donald Trump then he wrote a sequel called Trumpdy Dumpty wanted a crown

and my guess in that one he turns around and he says Trump not so bad wait you're telling me he doubles down on how Trump is bad and then would it shock you

to learn that there's a third book called a Confederacy of Dumpties who's that for what do you mean children they love John Lithgow's

hectoring poetry and I think He only needs to write one more, which hopefully he's working on in between shows, and then that's going to do it. Then Trump will be like, he got me. I'm out. These rhymes. I didn't think he'd do these rhymes.

He's spitting hot fire. All right, Joe, just one more plug, of course, for your podcast. Yeah, so my podcast, thank you, theater we saw, which I don't know what episode will be on by the time this comes out. You know, as I'm talking about it, it's very new. It releases biweekly. We talk about two shows each episode, two new shows, but maybe we'll do some fun episodes, as I mentioned, such as about the pipe robbery at Perfect Crime. You have guests on occasionally?

We have cool guests on. We just had Grace Walker, who's a great, like, theater TikToker on. We're going to have more cool people on, including non-theater people. A big hope of ours going forward is to start having some people who are not like, theater-specific people, but, like, comedians who are like, who are into theater, because many of them are, whether they proudly admit it or, or not. So we're hopeful to have lots of different types of guests on. And, yeah, it's fun.

Give it a, give it a listen. There's a link in the episode description. And wait, this is also a first. You have to take us out. Oh, okay. Yeah, so in the bunk of an I, uh, listen to Joey's podcast. next week on the show is Toys Toy Story 5

Of course which at this point has already come out because the Stanton series premiered a little later but we have yet to see but I'm told there's an iPad So that's next week and then we will be starting our series on some fuck called Martin Scorsese

So listen forward to that And as always Well no you got a rate review and subscribe We have a rate review and subscribe We have a Patreon Yeah, sure. We got, okay, what's on our Patriots? Yeah, Blank Check Special Features. We got, we're starting a Resident Evil

Commentary series. Fun! We're going to watch the Resident Evil movies. Paul W.S. Anderson, his universe of six movies, and then the Rizable Resident Evil, welcome to Raccoon City. And then I guess we will touch on the Zach Quaker movie as well at some point. I don't know. Like, yeah, we'll talk about it. That's patreon.com slash Blankcheck. We also have a newsletter

on Substack Checkbook. It's a weekly behind the scenes look into the world of Blank Check. I think we've done all we need to do as far as housekeeping. So, and as always, David, as always, do something about the nut. Yeah, there's an acorn. Golden nut. The golden acorn comes for us all.

Blank Check with Griffin and David is host. by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty 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. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American novel,

with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Phil, 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 Blank CheckPod.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions. That sound? It means summer's biggest event is here. The fashion is unmatched. The crowd's buzzing. The bets are. down. This isn't just a race. It's the Kings Plate. Canada's most iconic day of the track, world-class racing, live music, gourmet food and pure, heart-pounding thunder. Saturday, August 15th,

Woodbine Racetrack. Tickets start at $35. Don't miss out. Lock yours in today at kingsplate.com. The Kingsplayed. Rule the Day. Must be 18 plus to wager. No one to take the reins. Responsiblegambling.org.