Blank Check with Griffin & David - Mulholland Drive with Leslye Headland

Episode Date: November 17, 2024

Is it a dream? Is it about a dream? Is it a TV pilot? Is it the greatest film of the 21st century? In any case, Leslye Headland returns to the podcast to talk about David Lynch’s endlessly fascinating 2001 masterpiece MULHOLLAND DR. We may not have all the answers, but we do have a lot of thoughts about Hollywood, about Billy Ray Cyrus, about actors being shoved down audiences’ throats, about diners, about Patrick Fischler’s eyebrows, about the diner owned by Patrick Fischler’s dad, about Naomi Watts’ friendship with Nicole Kidman, about Corky Romano…the list goes on. The Box Office Game is Sponsored by Regal Cinemas: Sign up for Regal Unlimited today and get 10% off your 3 month subscription when using code BLANKCHECK 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

When you see the podcast in the picture that was shown to you earlier today, you will say, this is the podcast. The rest of the podcast can stay, that's up to you, but the choice for that lead podcast is not up to you. Now you will see me one more time if you do good. You'll see me two more times if you do bad. Good podcast. There's sometimes a podcast.

How many hosts does a podcast have? There's so many more you could do. Come on. No iPodcast? I thought you might do that. Oh, sure. A man's podcast. A man's podcast goes some ways.

Oh, you just like the cowboy. Yeah, I do. But you're not doing his voice. You're doing a more generic cowboy voice. There's sometimes a buggy. I wish I could do Monty Montgomery exactly right. Monty Montgomery's secret legend of blank check. He's come up before.

Oh, he has come up before. Leslie can talk about it. Do you know who plays the cowboy? Yes, the producer. Monty, right. But was the co-director of Catherine Bigelow's first film, The Loveless. Excuse me?

Which we covered on the show and was also the producer of Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady, and then produced several of David Lynch's films and appears in this as an actor. Like has now crossed three mini-series in a way, in a capacity that kind of feels like the role the cowboy plays in this movie, relative to those people's careers where it's like I just roll into town and make a big impact, I disappear. There's sometimes a buggy. I'm working with you very intensely for a short period of time and then I'm gone.

What were you gonna say? What were you gonna say about the cowboy? We've covered him as a director, a producer, and an actor. That's true, we have. Well, he, in Room to Dream, he talks about how he just wanted Monty for the role and said, I would like you to play this role. And Monty said, absolutely not. But then people kept calling him being like, so here are your dates.

Which I do think is kind of the lynch. The funny thing to think about, he's in the TV pilot. We're going to talk about all of this. And you can just imagine the Twin Peaks thing of like sorry, buddy Now now you're just gonna be in every five hours, so it's like it's right. It's like yeah, and you're the log lady now Yeah, you're just gonna be showing up. Yeah, like it's not just you did me a favor for the pilot It's very log-laden though The the the light flickersers before he shows up.

I was just double-checking. This is his only acting credit. It's his first and only acting credit. Obviously, not only was he not a professional actor, but it's not even like he has a cameo in The Loveless. It's not like he has cameos in his other films he produced. No. Lynch saw him.

Had already been working with him for like five or six years at this point. But do we think he came up with the character looking at him and thought... Possibly. I'm kind of guessing. Or he had the character and then was... and then felt Monty's name. There's some Tom's a buggy. When we talked about him in our Loveless episode, and this was before we had researchers as we were fucking scrambling for context on Mike, we were like, who's this guy?

And we Googled him and saw a picture of him We're like first of all his name is Monty Montgomery. Here's the picture. This is his IMDB picture It looks like a tin type of a bank robber from the fucking 1870s We did like 40 minutes of bits of like how did this man enter through a time warp? So I kind of see David Lynch looking at him. I believe he wore his own clothes Yeah And so I believe he'd be like you know what if I so I believe. He'd be like, you know what, if I just put you in front of camera

and you just say my oblique dialogue, that will have some power to it. Yeah. Yeah. And in Room to Dream, he says that, or maybe Thoreau says that, he said, do you want to run lines to Monty? And Monty was like, I'm good.

Hell yeah. Then show them. They start the scene, he has no idea what he's saying. So they just wrote the lines and then taped them on Justin. We should cut to Justin just covered and inside. Sometimes there's a buggy. Have you guys seen those pictures? You're too busy being a smart alec to be thinking.

The behind the scenes pictures from the filming of The Godfather, where Brando of course was in his PQ card era, and every other cast member. There are filming of The Godfather, where Brando, of course, was in his PQ card era, and every other cast member. There are photos from The Godfather where you're like, this is one of the most iconic scenes in the history of movies. And Michael Corleone just has cue cards around his neck. There's a great one of Duvall,

where he literally has ten different pieces of paper pinned to his wool suit. But hey, it seems to be working. Yeah, it seems to be. Robert Duvall looks like he's doing the Love Actually proposal. Yes. He's just got like, giant. You are perfect.

It works, man, if it works, it works. That's the thing, if it works, it's working. I mean, that's so funny though, especially, I mean like Clooney, the famous thing with Clooney that I talk about sometimes, is that in ER, he would put his sides on his little clipboard, right? Cause he's a doctor.

And he looks down at them all the time. And then it turns into a tick that he uses in all his movies, not to look at things, just to, cause he knows it makes him look cute and vulnerable to go like, And there's the famous story. And it's the one Clooney move to go like... And there's the famous story... And it's the number one Clooney move, is to look down. There's the famous story when they're making The Peacemaker,

the inaugural film released by... DreamWorks. And his sort of first star blockbuster. And Spielberg had obviously been like part of the process of him getting on ER and whatever. And he's now on the set of like the first vehicle that a studio is banking on. Yeah. And Spielberg comes out from behind the monitor. That was pre-Batman? Yeah.

It's the same year? Or maybe the same year. It's right around the same time. But Spielberg comes out from behind the monitor and he puts his arm around him and Clooney thinks he's about to get complimented. And Spielberg's like, I swear to God, you'll be a movie star if you can ever stop looking down. You got to get over this thing. He was wrong.

And I think he knew like the backstory of it. But he was like, if you can just fucking nip this one tick in the bud, you'll be a movie star. No, he's going to look down for the rest of his damn life. Please introduce our show. I have so much to say about this film. Really? Mm hmm. Had you seen this before? Yes. I have so much to say about this film. Really? Mm-hmm. Had you seen this before? Mm-hmm. Yes.

I have seen this one before. Mid, where do you stand on it? Wait, did you? This is basically my favorite movie of all time. I would say this was definitely my top ten. In David's Sight and Sound top ten list. That's true. It was on his ballot.

Have we covered... I feel like we would get this in the Elephant Man episode. We've gone through this. We covered... We did a... I did have Alien on my S the Elephant Man episode. We've gone through this. We covered, we did a, I did have Alien on my Sight and Sound Top Ten. You did on Patreon. Which we did do on Patreon. And that is it.

Of my Sight and Sound Top Ten. This is the first film we're covering. Oh, you're forgetting I Love You to Death. Yeah, that was in year ten. You were getting it because it wasn't part of a proper director mini-series. You did a Casden then? We didn't no. Ben sometimes just picks a movie that he thinks is elemental.

That are usually kind of curated around what was on Comedy Central in the early 2000s. That's how I saw that movie. They're usually curated by like what are the most totemic films in American cinema. It's sort of his own sight and sound battle. What films start with a freeze frame of a spinning pizza? Which that movie does. Blank check. Freeze frame.

With Griffin and David. I haven't seen it in so long. Oh, it's normal. I'm David. It's normal. It is normal. It's normal. It's a normal movie.

Oh, normal. Top to bottom. Tip to tail. This flick is normal. Not to get derailed, but Ben, just give me like one or two other ones that you've picked. Oh, oh, please. Oh, let's end this game. You want some of Ben's choices?

Yeah. The man who knew too little. Under Siege 2. Dark territory. We find out halfway through that episode that he had never seen Under Siege 1. He has now since seen it. I have. Pretty good.

But at that point in time, when he picked it as one of his favorite movies of all time, we said Ben, you could pick any movie. He said Under Siege 2 and then Al, we're into the conversation. We were like, is this what the characters like in the first one? He's like, I don't know. Wouldn't know. Never seen it. Fletch. That was the first one. Fletch. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a solid choice. Streetletch, yep. Yeah. Yeah. That's a solid choice. Street Fighter. Yeah. This? I'm on a roller coaster ride. Assassin's Creed. There have been two video game movies.

You're a gamer, Leslie. Do you like Assassin's Creed? No, no. Well, here's what's fun. Neither does Ben. He never played the games before watching the movie. Much like Under Siege. I just got really into it and I was in a bad relationship and I just kind of kept rewatching in the middle of the movie. Much like Under Siege. I just got really into it, and I was in a bad relationship,

and I just kind of kept rewatching in the middle of the night. And then I got, like, obsessed with it. He saw it, like, 30 times. Yeah. Yeah. It was a nice present. Wait, are we forgetting one?

There's so many. What do you mean, Joe Dirt? Joe Dirt. Joe Dirt. Clifford, obviously. Oh, of course. Clifford. We've done it twice. We went back for seconds. Clifford 2, hyper Clifford, obviously. Oh, of course. Clifford. We've done it twice.

We went back for seconds. Clifford 2, hyper Clifford. Yeah. Anyway, we're moving on. Look, that's what our show is sometimes, but what it's usually about is it's usually a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want.

Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes your failed pilot is retrofitted into a feature film That not only makes David Simms ballot sure but ranks number eight That's a good question. Actually. What you mean like on the on the total Sound ballot it is insane to go like what is this movie David Lynch made a 90-minute pilot for ABC that they deemed Unerrable sure. Oh great, so it's lost to time? No, he got a French company to let him film an hour of new footage and edit two things together. Eighth in the critics' poll.

Oh, so the movie's a disaster? No, it's considered to be one of the 10 greatest films of all time. That's true. Didn't the, something, I don't know what it was, but something named it the greatest film of the 21st century. I think that is what it is. but something named it the greatest film of the 21st century. I think that is what it is. But shortly after it came out. Yes.

Like, it's just, in 2001, it was like, this is it, this is the bar. But even, look, it is the highest ranked film of the 21st century on the site and sound. I believe that's, no, it's not. It's the only one on the top 10. It's actually not. Fuck, what's higher?

Who else is it? It's, In the Mood for Love is ranked higher. Okay, fair. Which is another ranked higher. Okay. Okay. Fair. Which is another wonderful film. Yeah, fair. That is the only other one that's ranked higher though. That's American film. Wow. Well, I watched this movie last night with my friend.

I've seen this movie. Oh wait, have you finished this spiel please? This is a main series on the films of David Lynch. Thank you. Sure. We're blank check over here. I said all the other stuff. Yeah, true, true. It's called Twin Pods Firecast with me. Sure. Whatever. Our guest today triumphantly returns to the show.

She's back! Pup and fist. Ready to fucking go. I'm ready. I'm very regretful that our zodiac, we only got, I feel like we barely touched the surface. Sure, but I'll say this. We had like a little bit of a, like, there's a problem moment with the response to that episode where people were like, I'm so disappointed. It's only two hours and 45 minutes. What went wrong?

We're like, how have we gotten ourselves into a gilded cage where if an episode is only a little above two and a half hours, people feel like we're ripping them off. I agree that I could talk about that movie for seven straight hours, but also, hey, motherfuckers, if an episode's longer than 90 minutes, that's a kindness. That's a... And usually they're way over that.

I feel like... But I specifically feel like... Just a... This is why I had to come back in a tone. I had to tone because... And you cleared out your week. I cleared... I'm here. I'm here. We're gonna... We're gonna be sleeping here tonight. You brought a sleeping bag. Yeah, exactly.

Leslie did text me and, you know, like, hey, do you want to do... Oh, Mulholland Drive. That sounds great. Yeah. When can you do it? You guys need like all day, right? And I was like, I mean, it doesn't hurt. Yeah. Yeah. Leslie Hadland, the acolytes of

Sleeping with other people my favorite romantic comedy of the 21st century. Thank you Bachelorette, yeah many other things Mulholland Drive A show crying out loud that no one was ever gonna watch Because they said no, thank you. This does not go to series. I just can't get, it is the weirdest. I know you can't get over it. That is the most Griffin thing to do. I've never gotten over it. Okay, well.

It is so bizarre that this is the process that leads to this movie and the movie turned out the way it did and has the reputation it does. And I just want to state again, the only clear takeaway from this is that Moana 2 is going to be the greatest film of the last 20 years. It's the first time since then that someone's finally gotten the idea of we should replicate. Is there any other example? I can't think of one. TV pilot rejected turned into a movie. I think Moana 2 is the first time since Mulholland Drive that someone has finally had the bravery to say, fucking these aren't episodes. some new shit re-edit put it in theaters

Sutton sound here we Well, it's sort of interesting best It's interesting to think about it with Twin Peaks and we're gonna talk all about this But obviously with Twin Peaks he makes that he does the same thing. He makes a 90-minute pilot Shows it to ABC convinces them that they are suspicious, but are like, okay, let's do it. But he did then shoot the quote unquote international version of Twin Peaks

that has tacked on scenes that sort of explain what's going on in that you see Bob in a basement going like, ah, ah, ah, ah. I like being crazy. Yes, it doesn't explain much. But it's sort of what he does here. Where he's like, well, let me tack on an act. Where I go nuts.

I mean, I may be simplifying. But, you know, I guess he thought, I'll just do something like that again. You say already that you like this as much as any movie ever made. That it's on that tier of movies you can comfortably call your favorite movie, even if it's not, you know, strictly your number one. Yeah, and like as a lesbian in Hollywood who suffers from suicide ideation, this is a biopic.

This is a biopic. Oh, okay. No, this all happened to me. Yes. Yeah. No, I was gonna say, we were talking about a couple days ago getting ready for this episode and I was much like I'm now doing on Mike, just spinning out over like I can't believe this is how this movie came into reality.

And you were like, and the craziest thing is you can so clearly tell while watching it what was part of the pilot and what he shot later. Well, I can't see that. I will reveal now. That's really interesting because I can't. I'll say, I don't know if I could, I would nail it 100% of the time, but I was watching it and feeling like I could parse it out and it's like, there's even just like the sense of like some shit being shot a year later.

I will just, I'm just going to cut you off. I have seen the pilot. I found it and watched it this week. After long avoiding it, out of fear not of, just of spoiling my love of Mulholland Drive. Yeah, yeah. It's on the internet. You can find it if you look. You can go look.

I didn't do the work. It's fine. I didn't want you to, honestly. Me neither. Thank God. And we will talk all about this. But the pilot is essentially the first, is the first 90 minutes of Mulholland Drive. That was my guess.

Without too much fucking around. The only thing that is added is the Winkies scene, which is not in the pilot at all. The, you know, diner. The Patrick Fisler? Yes, that is not in the pilot. And the sex scenes in the nudity are not. No, that's what I'm saying.

So when you find the body, like... Oh, I see. When they go in, that is the end of the pilot. The only thing that's really added is the Winkies scene. A couple things moved around. There are a couple extra scenes of Robert Forster in the pilot love to see him sure literally just him kind of doing like well looks like chicken going on here We're like right. This is going to be

Continuing story that was my guess and some scenes are shuffled around a little bit But it changes a little bit after that point But also it's like it that's built into the text of the movie. That makes sense. Right? That like the movie's vibe changes, the characters change, the look changes. I don't know if it's because I had no idea

of the backstory the first time I watched the movie, and the movie made such a deep impression on me. I watched it, I saw it in the theater. It was the first David Lynch film I'd ever seen. Wow, okay. And I was on Ecstasy. Not same. Now our paths diverge.

And- Really for me same. Or I took Ecstasy right after. Sure. There was Ecstasy. Yeah. But what are the kids calling now? Molly.

Molly. I was doing Molly either during or after. No, no, but Leslie, we're similar ages. It's Ecstasy. It pisses me off so much that people don't call it that anymore. I'm like, God damn it, I grew up with everyone calling it that. I know, just kind of like-. It's ecstasy. It pisses me off so much that people don't call it that anymore. I'm like, God damn it, I grew up with everyone calling it that. And it's a great name! Wiley Brand!

It's a great name. It's euphoria! It's ecstasy! Right? No, that's just being funny. It makes such an impression. It's just... I know it's a little different or whatever. It's different because the era of ecstasy was more it was pills. And a lot of times it was cut

with like weird stuff. And it's actually better that nowadays MDMA is purer and it's referred to as Molly. I'm aware of what happened. And I grew up in the 90s where they were like, don't take ecstasy, you'll die like this one kid did one time, everyone else seems to do fine, but there was that one kid.

Ecstasy and Dungeons and Dragons lead to death. Kind of, yeah. And you're like, there's one example and maybe the story doesn't check out. Anyway, anyway. You saw it. No, I was just saying it made such a deep, deep impression on me. And when I was rewatching it for this, I felt like the best place to come from would be to really do the sense memory. Of this is what I felt the first time I watched it

and then rewatching it for this, this is... Sure. Yeah. But I had no idea the background of it. I don't think I found out... When you saw it the first time. Oh yeah, I don't think I found out about that until 10 years later.

I was gonna say, I think the same with me. And when I heard it, I was like, that can't be true. Yeah, that does not process. I would have known that. And the movie would have felt that way. That's what's weird. I don't remember when I learned it, but it certainly wasn't within the couple of years of the movie coming out and being feted. It was probably ten years later.

I was 15 years old. It's David's story time now for doing a Mulholland Drive episode. Wait, you were 15? Alright, so you're a little older than me. Oh, God. It's fine, Leslie, I'm 38, what are you, like, it doesn't matter. 43. Yeah, exactly, we're in a similar age. I'm 21.

Yeah. Did you see this in theaters? No, I watched this on DVD with my mom when she rented it, probably a year later. Right, and that was like super cool when the sex scene happened and everything, you were just kind of like white-knuckling it on the armchair. Armrest got a big workout on that, Cash.

I was 15 years old. If I had seen a Lynch film before this, that I actually do not remember. I saw Straight Story, which I have talked about in that episode, but that was my parents being like, there's a David Lynch movie released by Disney playing at the Angelica That's appropriate to take kids to well take the boys And you liked it and I was like well that gives me no sense of who David Lynch is Like walked out my parents are just like Walt Disney Pictures presents, okay, David Lynch It's on Disney Plus. Yes.

And they couldn't stop saying like, it's so weird that he made that. And I was like, what do you mean that's the most normal movie I've ever seen? It's normal to a fault. So when I'm watching this a couple years later on DVD, at that point, I probably knew him by reputation, but also was like, oh, this is the weird David Lynch shit everyone's talking about. Yes. yeah, same. So, I was 15 years old, I'm a budding cinephile. I certainly know I have to go see this new movie

that won a prize at Cannes, that is the new David Lynch film, the first in four years. Pornosticator lists. I know that it... I do know about the TV pilot thing. There is an article in Sight and Sound, which of course later I would rank this for, you know, as a working film critic. The dream of my life was to get to make a Sight and Sound top ten, which I then got to do and I made a really

boring one. Good job me. But I did put my own drive on it. David's process was borderline insane for developing that. I was like, boring, boring, boring, boring. But, and so I read Graham Fuller's piece, Graham Fuller is in the New York film critic circle to this day, of which I am currently the chairman, must be asked. I just think... Like, I read David Graham Fuller's piece on Sight and Sound, on Mulholland Drive in Sight and Sound, 100 times.

You're saying this movie represents a lot of full circle stuff of your entire relationship to film and film culture. This is the tunnel opening for me. For my life. I would say it is formative in my identity. Like it seeped into my bloodstream, into the molecules of my body in a way that I... And I am not a lesbian who works in Hollywood and had suicidal ideation. Oh, humble brag. Nonetheless.

Drag me, drag me. No, I'm just using your words against you. No, I went to see it at the Holloway Odeon with my friend Oliver Stevens. Shout out, Ollie. He's now Ollie Kinneberger, actually. I should use his current name. Yeah. He did kind of a Mulholland Drive character name switch.

He did. God bless. And I've never been so scared by a movie in my life and never will I be no same Yeah, because it's so elemental like now. I whatever I go see long legs, and I'm just like Well, I didn't write that headline, but I was scared, but you know it's funny for you to say that when this week Scary for you to say that when this week, a review got published. Yes, long legs is scary. Yes, it was the headline. Literally, the headline they gave David's review is like, it's true, long legs is as scary as everyone's telling you it is.

And the Davids here are going like, yeah, long legs, whatever. I'm just saying, I'll never have that elemental fear that I was like, I don't know what's going to fucking happen in this movie. And where did this come from? Yeah. Yeah, like. Right. Like, scenes like the diner, of course, freaked me out, but then also just scenes where like, they're just in this movie. And where did this come from? Yeah. Yeah, like, uh, like not, not, scenes like the diner of course, freaked me out, but then

also just scenes where like they're just in their house. Sure. And I'm just like, I don't know what's going to happen. Yeah. Is someone going to come in? Are they going to, like, what's going to happen? I'll never have that feeling quite the same way again. Yes.

Uh, and it changed my life and I owned the absolutely shitty shitty boulderized DVD that David Lynch put out. Did you have this DVD, Leslie? The Nudity. The DVD? Did you have it on DVD? Yes, I did. I was obsessed with his hatred for this DVD. Well, it's famously bad.

It doesn't even have chapters. It's nothing. It's bad, yeah. It's got those weird 10 clues. It's got the 10 clues, which are very annoying and people fixated a little too much on. I don't think they've they free-micked it. There are no special features, he censored the nudity, and there are no scene selection,

and he put in the fucking piece of paper. And it's obviously not great quality. Is he okay? I think he was kind of, whatever, he was dealing with the dawn of the digital era, you know, in his own way, I feel like. He's now kind of- I still feel like, I wanna say his criterion

just don't have scene selection still. I think they do not, which is fine. I mean, I don't mind that. He's got a big, like, I don't want people jumping around. What's the scene? Yeah, just think about it. Like even as I was watching it for this, I sort of started to go, okay, so if I could just

get my thoughts together, this section of started to go, okay, so if I could just get my thoughts together, you know, this section and then this section. And I got so lost in trying to make the bullet point outline that I just brought my laptop this time. There it is. Because I was... I just noticed you have your laptop in front of you. Yeah.

I mean, Zodiac I know so well that I felt confident coming in without it. A far more linear movie that you can obsess over, Robert Greisman style, and be able to recount how many steps it took to get from scene one to scene 50. Yeah, exactly. And break it up, like, in that LA confidential way of like, I know this section, then this section, then this section. Yes, yes. It is a very... Yeah.

But this is no way. So, I watch the DVD over and over and over again. I can read everyone's lines in this movie. And every time you're fuming, you're like knuckling. The quality of this is poor. No, I was obsessed with it. No, I had the Ten Clues pinned to my wall. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that now.

Well, I had a big... I would steal, well, not really steal, but at the end of the day, I would take Variety magazines home. And this is back when they were like, you know, humongous. So all of the basically wallpaper, they were basically. That's what I did as I took out. I know I did. I took out Leslie.

I took out the ads. Yeah, the ads and just put them on my wall. And just, you know, it just became, I think I had like, not that many, maybe like three or four. Yeah, I had a lot more than that. But you know what it just became, I think I had like, not that many, maybe like three or four. Yeah. I had a lot more than that. But. You know what I would do? I had this FYC ad for Quentin Tarantino,

best director for Kill Bill Volume One, which he got no Oscar nomination for, where that's him and his little. I thought she was nominated though. The movie got zero noms, both. Insane. Across the two films, zero noms. And she wasn't?

No, it's wild. It was at a Golden Globe, is that what I'm saying? She got a Golden Globe num. And it's him doing this and Uma's looking at him in her yellow tracksuit, I think about it. What I meant was I had just Mulholland Drive. Yes, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay, got it.

That was the only one I hear about. That was the only one I hear about. Oh, and Amelie, Amelie. I had a couple Amelies. 2001, baby. It was 2001, baby, that accordion music? Yeah. Come on, we, nothing else going on

I keep trying to explain this to people who are younger much younger than than we are I'm like, you don't understand we We didn't have the internet. Yeah, we or it was the dawn It was a it was didn't have anything to do you like it was like Yeah, it was like that that wheel with the stick like we had that was what we were doing like interesting my version of that was we we got the fucking trades like my dad had variety in Hollywood Reporter subscriptions I would certainly pour over those FYC ads I would love being like two-page FYC spread for meet the parents and my dad would be like contractual obligation they don't think

it's gonna get anything Terry but they have for supporting actress and he's like it's baked into her contract But I would never think to put those out New York Times would always do summer movie preview Fall movie preview. Oh god, remember that in addition to the art section. Yeah for those two seasons They'd be like here's its own thing that's full New York Times sized posters for all the things that are coming out this summer with the dates, basically in chronological order. And I would pull those out for whatever movies I was most excited for and put them all on my wall.

And to your point of the internet not existing, sometimes I'd be going through that and movies, giant blockbuster movies that were coming out two months later Yeah, that would be the first time I heard about it You're like this movie cost a hundred million dollars. Yeah, I'm paying attention to everything. I'm watching entertainment tonight I'm reading entertainment weekly and the New York Times in May is telling me what is gonna be the biggest movie in August Like what the fuck is the Sixth Sense? Oh That is a movie that does not exist with the internet. No, and that poster is nothing.

That's a fair point. It just doesn't exist. Or not in the same way. Not in the way of like six weeks later people being like, I guess I should see that, huh? Like everyone's talking about it. Same thing with The Matrix, I think. Same thing with The Matrix.

That was a weirdly, obviously it was a huge hit yeah But both of those were weirdly word-of-mouth movies and same year And both of them and both of them have the same who's the fucking? idiot who was like 1999 the film the year that changed film not saying his name on mic yes No, no, we can. We know this person. David thought about pitching that book.

But it was an entertainment... Wasn't it an Entertainment Weekly like... Yes. That's who did that. Yeah, I think he worked at E.D.A. I can't remember. Like ten years later they were like, we're gonna make this a thing.

But I feel like everybody already knew that. Yes. That's why it was a good pitch for a book. And it's right. The thing with that year is just... You need to pitch something that lots of people know cross-section between things they already know it popular phenomenon and that culturally important like Star Wars and Blair Witch you had the matrix and the Sixth Sense and right club and right Magnolia But the game's making 300 million dollars and getting nominated for six Oscars and being critically beloved Good good ass movie. I

Just rewatched it. I was like this but can movie both of those movies Yeah, while being very mainstream blockbusters had this thing where they like come out They open a little better than expected and then the marketing campaign is people saying to you I can't even tell you what this is you just have to watch it my word for it Yeah, just go Yeah, which is how Lynch movies usually tend to stick in the culture or Twin Peaks people just going like I can't explain this thing You just gotta watch it. You just gotta go. That's how you you know as like a budding cinephile Usually most people watch Eraserhead. That's how people got into Twin Peaks at the time. Yes, Leslie

Do you have a Lynch a larger Lynch take or whatever? Like, you know, if Mulholland Drive was your first Lynch, like, do you like David Lynch? I love David Lynch. Have you seen all of his films? Yeah, I have not seen all of his films. I have oddly read a bunch about David Lynch, like Catching the Big Fish, Room to Dream, Lynch on Lynch. I find his personality to be sparkling.

I mean, he to be sparkling. I mean, he's really funny. He's incredibly uncharismatic. Not hot and not cool. Oh my god, he's so hot. Jesus Christ. This is another thing we talked about. Costner and Lynch.

All the most handsome. Yes, you're right. But you're right, Lynch was always hot. There's different kinds of Lynch or whatever, but he's hot in all types. He's aging like Paul Newman. It's that thing where you're like, every version of him. He feels like this...

This is not quite right, and I think he's a superior artist, but he does feel like the cinematic version of Tom Robbins. In terms of... Interesting. Everything that happens feels like this stream of consciousness of him. Yeah. There isn't sort of a set up payoff to Still Life with Woodpecker. And yet at the same time, once you finish it, you have the experience of, oh, that was

holistic. This is what's kind of, yes. Even though it felt like each step was so wild. Yes. But you had characters you could hold onto, you had themes you could hold onto, you were compelled by particular things. Yes. But then you're told other things that,

or you're shown other things, I should say, for Lynch, that you're trying to place as, you're just trying to place,, that you're trying to place as... You're just trying to place. I guess you're trying... I love Lynch because you are always... And this is what I mean by Tom Robbins. It's like you're always trying to find your footing, and yet you are taken care of.

You don't feel completely abandoned. What is so bizarre about him? I mean, I don't say this in the framework of me patting myself on the back and being like, what are you talking about? All these movies are easy to understand. I figured them all out. But it is fascinating for how much hand wringing there is about interpreting meaning of shit in Lynch movies, right? And this movie's Wikipedia page is the longest Wikipedia page I've ever seen for any movie. It has 20 subsections of analysis

and theories and fucking whatever, right? And I feel like was talked about so much as this puzzle box movie, this completely bleak, like people are obsessed with trying to crack a thing to the point of putting the ten clues in. And maybe it's just that like watching them in the context of this podcast, where we are going chronologically and we're reading dossiers. This is true. I'm like all of these movies are clearly very representative of things where we are going chronologically and we're reading dossiers. This is true. Yeah. I'm like, all of these movies are clearly very representative of things that he's going

through in his life. Well, that's true. They're all so personal and they make sense in the chronological order of like everything we're reading. His wife fucked Billy Ray Cyrus. Yeah. That's what the movie's about. No, it's about a girl who lost her keys.

I'm sorry, I have to make that joke with this one. Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. I've been saying that every movie is about a guy who lost his keys. I'm sorry, I have to make that joke with this one. Go ahead. Go ahead. I've been saying that every movie is about a guy who lost his keys and this movie actually has a key in it. Yeah. Wait, you've been saying that? It's like a joke.

Like movies easy to solve. That guy who lost his keys. That's David's joke about. How people are like, I can explain a race right to you. The guy lost his keys by the end you got his keys back. People try to read them like he's trying to transmit some weirdness. No, this is a clue.

This is a clue. This is a clue. No, he's trying to work through his own shit. He's inviting you, this is what I mean, like he's inviting you into his brain. Yes. He's not going to apologize in any way for it. It's gonna be extremely confident.

Yes. And he is gifting you the opportunity to have an experience, digesting it. And the miracle of him as an artist is that he does that in a way that is compelling to people who don't have the puzzle pieces of what's going on inside his head or in his life. That it can represent different things to different people and meaning and be gripping and be funny and be scary when he is also not really playing by any conventional rules of narrative cinema.

I remember the other thing too is it, and end narrative that comes to mind. What I think is I know exactly where I was sitting when I saw X scene. Sure. You know, like Laura Dern's monologue in Blue Velvet. I know exactly where I was sitting. I know exactly the feeling I was having. It's a physical sensation that you're remembering as much as remembering the film. Exactly. And you just, like, I remember watching that and going, how long has this been going

on for? Has this been the whole movie? Is the whole movie the scene? Because I'm trying to, usually with other films, you're watching the scene in relation to the scene you just saw. Mm-hmm. Right? So there's this quote, I don't know who said it, that in plays, the viewer is thinking, this is what's happening now. And in movies, they're thinking, what's going to happen next?

Interesting. And I think David Lynch is... You have to watch him with, this is what's happening happen next. And I think David Lynch is... You have to watch him with, this is what's happening now. You can't say, while you're watching Laura Dern, you're not going, I wonder how... Where's this leading? Where's this leading? You just think,

wow, what am I watching? You're never gonna predict where it's going. But I think that his thesis statement might be, because Blue Velvet comes out of the disaster that's done. So it does, I like this movie better, I consider this movie to be his masterpiece. But I do understand that Blue Velvet is what cements him as him.

Yes. You raise your head, he bursts on the scene. There's nothing controversial about saying Blue Velvet. So with Blue Velvet, I think if there were a thesis statement for him that he hasn't already said, I think he articulates his work extremely well I agree, but I think that it's when Isabella Rossellini discovers Kyle McLaughlin in her in her closet Yeah, and then she's like take your clothes off or whatever. Yeah, and she says what do you want?

And he says I don't know. Yeah This guy is like trying so hard to figure himself out and that's what all of these movies are about. And that's what all of the movies are about. And they're reflective of whatever the specific issue is he's dealing with at that point in time. Yeah. To some extent.

Yeah. Right. I think with Mohan Drive. It's about a woman who loses her keys. It's about a woman who loses her keys. No, I think. That's genuinely true though. It is. But like, I do think there is, I don't think it is a...

Say it, David. I'm so afraid of making like any blankety statements. But anyway, I think there is a... You're representing your personal relationship experiences. No, no, no, I'm not. I'm saying, I think that there's a fairly... Okay, then you're making a grand blanket statement. A fairly, not straightforward, but like there is a way to read the plot of Mulholland Drive

that's not that complicated. I would agree with that. He uses dream logic, obviously, and that's the idea of what's going on here. There are other things that are a little more like, it's up to you, but I also think David Lynch very happily wants anyone to bring anything to these movies.

And so, to all of his movies, right? And so he's obviously certainly never gonna sit down and be like, the thing that's going on is this. But, and if- You never do that to an audience. Right, and if I went up to David Lynch and I was like, Mulholland Drive is about like something that happened to me, like, you know.

He'd be thrilled. Exactly, he would be like, that's great, I'm sure. Or he would be like, you know, have you heard of Transcendal Meditation? I'd be like, yes I have. He wouldn't, absolutely. But, but I do feel like this film came out You know, have you heard of Transcendal Meditation? I guess I have. He wouldn't, absolutely. But I do feel like this film came out at the dawn of the internet.

Not dawn, dawn, but you know, of like, where people would then go. I would say mainstream of the internet. Right. Type in Mulholland Drive. There is a website called MulhollandDrive.net that still runs that has this kind of lovely early 2000s sort of aesthetic to it that has like theories and stuff that people were piling in. There's a very famous salon.com article that I remember I would read over and over again

that was like trying to explain what's, you know, like it was the beginning of let's use the internet to collectively try and understand something that was confusing. A movie that made $7 million that was not like some sensation. It wasn't like Twin Peaks. But was an abstract piece of storytelling, not like aggressively abstract, but still abstract enough that broke into a mainstream sense and thus lots of people are like, what was that though?

But here's what's fascinating about it to me, is like Twin Peaks had that same cultural, we are in on trying to game this out, right? Kind of thing it did but we're going to talk internet error I know yes in a pre internet era where the way that happens on a peer-to-peer level is so much more bizarre It's a few it is and whatever and that's a phenomenon that stretches out But also like rises and falls really quickly and then as we've discussed and falls really quickly. And then, as we've discussed,

the stuff between Twin Peaks and this movie is largely reviled. He goes through this period where people are like, he's cooked, he's gone too far up his own ass. It's over on Lynch. And they're also mad at him because, I mean, I'm gay. I mean, I'm talking about people in the 90s

and the broadest brush, but I think people felt betrayed by twin pigs You gave us a beautiful thing and then you killed it when you break through with a show that has Such a wide cultural, you know Acknowledgement or whatever and people are like but you fucked that up Like I didn't like the Twin Peaks like didn't end how I wanted it to or didn't keep going how I wanted it to or whatever What about the I I mean, listen, echoing a particular fan base, I may say,

the first season, why didn't you give us the answer? Sure. You know, second season, you gave us the answer, we didn't like it. Right. Go fix the answer. Go fix the answer. You're talking about young Sheldon fans, right?

When you're talking about which fan base, I'm sorry, the Sheldon-verse. We need closure Here's the clothes. How did he get older? When with as time passes people grow up. I don't like that answer Do we have a lore director Sheldon wouldn't do that even if he were young? Fine Sheldon discovers an autism cube when he's 10 and that's okay. What do you want from me? I just like the idea that someone's like explain why he's like that I think someone in legend should count

Work them back in Reclaim Sheldon. I do think that is that is a sign of a fan base that has gone on too long It needs to be nuked from orbit where they're like, I know you removed all this from Canon Yeah, but I liked that one and enough of us do that You gotta bring it back and they're like Alright, bring it back. Alright, we're gonna take that one thing. Honestly, in my opinion Timothy Zan wrote Sheldon better than anyone else. I don't even think Chuck Laurie really got he he created Sheldon by accident He never really got Sheldon.

Mulholland Drive starts with Tony Krantz. My point I was gonna make. Just to finish this off. Do you love for me to do one sentence of the thing and then break in with some other shit? I'm not helping. It's funny. I'm not helping. Thank you. What?

No, it's just this film, when this comes out, and as you said in a much smaller way, 7 million domestic, one Oscar nomination, what have you, it's not a cultural phenomenon on the level of Twin Peaks crossing over the mainstream. The first time in 10 years that the public was like, let's lean in, crack our knuckles and try to figure this thing out. People were ready for Lynch to be back. Yes. They were ready.

Internet helps fuel this to be like there's now a dialectic going on between the viewers of the movie and this other section of like pop culture and the text itself. Tony Krantz is a CIA agent Okay He is instrumental to the creation of Twin Peaks in that he sort of brings Lynch to ABC and somehow makes that work Which obviously must have been a little complicated supposedly Supposedly Lynch recounts at one point

That he has this idea for Audrey Horn's character in Twin Peaks, Sherrilyn Fenn's character Audrey Horn, that one day she'll have a storyline where she goes to Los Angeles and starts a movie career and will make a movie about it. Interesting. Right. Well, kind of like, because there's been a lot of talk over the years. Not another show. Right. He was like, we'll do like a Audrey of talk over the years. Not another show. Right, he was like,

we'll do like a Audrey Horne movie that'll be about her trying to make it in show business. This is an award where he assumes Twinkie's extends for years and years and years and has multiple tendrils. Mark Frost remembers something similar. Like we were maybe gonna do a spin-off show, we were maybe gonna do a TV movie,

we were maybe gonna do a pilot, who knows? And it's one of those like classic, like we wrote on a napkin. It's an idea. We wrote on a napkin. They may like, we wrote on a napkin. It's an idea. We wrote on a napkin. They may not have even written on a napkin. They disgust us. Sherrilyn Fenn, who is, I will say, insane,

so she can't be completely trusted, confirms this, like, yes, this was something they were cooking up, like I would go to California. I'm sorry to call her insane, but check out her Instagram David Lynch says I don't know about that. All right. Well, thank you David Lynch The answer is it's probably somewhere in the middle, right? You know, like I don't know someone discussed this However, of course Twin Peaks falls apart

On the air and hotel room kind of turned David Lynch against TV for a while. Sure. Right. You said on the air? On the air. Yeah. And hotel room. Have you ever seen On the Air?

I haven't. I haven't. It is so bizarre in how much it isn't weird. Ha ha! Like that's the thing. You're watching it and you're just like, is this like sarcastic? Are you um... I don't think it's bad I think okay, I was gonna

But it feels like I want to make an old timey sitcom and then he just does that There's a there's a there's Lynch is very attracted to the quote wholesome. Yes. He really likes that, you know It so it makes sense. It makes sense that he would do that. Are those, HBO is hotel room. HBO is hotel room. But who's on the air? On the air was also ABC, am I wrong? Was on ABC in the summertime in 1992,

in 1992, which is right, when you know network has confidence. Your show will be debuting in July. So, but however, Krantzz, who now works at Imagine Television, the spinoff of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's show. Water Be Droppin', Ripple Effects. Is still like, no man, you should make another TV show. Like, you know, it's over the years,

just kind of like, come on, any ideas, throw in peanut. That was your biggest success. Yeah, why wouldn't you try to do that again? Lynch, of course, says, yeah, here's my perfect idea for a movie. No, I'm joking, he says, I picture Mulholland Drive at night,

you know, classic David Lynch. Sure. He doesn't even have a story. I have one thought. Right. And that's like. It's a road of mystery and danger. But isn't Blue Velvet like the ear? Yeah.

It's the first idea. Blue Velvet is the ear, and I've always wanted to crawl into a woman's closet and wash her dress. I'm not joking. That's something he said to somebody. That's how he said that? He pitched it to execs when they said, you got anything else.

What happens next? I crawl into a woman's closet. Did anyone say that in the framework of do you have any movie ideas? Honestly, that's hot. They were like, do you have any ideas. He's like I have always personally But also lost highway is like what if you got a videotape of yourself the exact Road it's rural in many places. It's curvy. It's two lanes It feels old you feel the history history of Hollywood on that road.

Now, I've only driven a Mulholland drive once or twice. It does, when I was on it, I am like, it is fucked up that this road exists. I don't know. I mean, you probably... Have you ever lived in LA? I have. I lived in LA for ballparking three years. And I gotta say, I'm excited to get into it, because he really pinpoints particular LA, like, corners of LA, and they all amplify the characters so much. I wanna just say...

Have you ever driven on Mulholland Drive? Well, I don't drive famous cars. I've definitely driven up there, and there is this, like... It's... Especially at night, there's this sort of, like, dreamy feeling to it., it's, especially at night, there's this sort of like dreamy feeling to it. It's kind of cool. And it's dangerous. And you feel like, I'm gonna kill someone

or someone's gonna kill me. It's the Fury Road. But then during the daytime, it is this, it has this like, if I'm remembering correctly, like one side of it is this kind of like Burbank-y, we're in the desert. And then the other side of it is like the richest of the rich Yes

Right. I mean look it's like David Lynch designed a road to Metaphoric represent his entire relationship to the entertainment industry That's actually you look at a map of LA and you're like here is LA and then here is you know Whatever, you know the North Hollywood and Van Nuys and all this stuff And it's like in the middle there these mountains you're like, okay mountains and then and then here is, you know, whatever, you know, the North Hollywood and Van Nuys and all this stuff. And it's like in the middle there, these mountains, you're like, oh, okay, mountains. And then there's just the map just has this one road that's like, yeah. And you're like, what's that?

Like Mulholland Drive. Okay, it looks like you're driving through the Pyrenees. Like it just anyway, I want to make it clear. I'm not making an empirical slam on the city that many people live in and love. But much to the point of what you're saying I Watch this movie. I'm like this is why I don't live in LA. It's I'm like It's very it is I think it's very specific to like specifically a certain type of person who wants to work in the entertainment industry Yeah, doesn't like

Specifically the culture of living in that geographic place while trying to do this type of work Yeah, and the way the city's built around it the culture of living in that geographic place while trying to do this type of work. Yeah. And the way the city's built around it. I was drawing a squiggly line. But I watched this movie and I'm like, yeah, yeah, David, I fucking get it. That's how I feel too. And all of this feels weird. It's one of those movies that I think people love to say, you know, it's a love letter

to this, maybe they don't say love letter, but it's a twisted love letter to the city. Los Angeles plays itself. And I'm like, no, no, no, it is Los Angeles. Right. This is certainly what I think Los Angeles is. He's actually not making any value statement on it. He's not making any statement on it. That's it. You know what the love letter to Los Angeles is? The fact that he still lives there. I thought that when I was reading the book before. That's it. You know what the love letter to Los Angeles is? The fact that he still lives there. I thought that when I was reading the book before.

That's something like the movie saying, this is a movie about him being terrified by the city and yet he stays. He stays. He doesn't have to. He's like, I moved there in the middle of the night. I woke up the next morning and it was so bright. He just loved it. He never left.

Right. And Twin Peaks, not Twin Peaks, but Twin Peaks to an extent, I was gonna say Blue Velvet, but like the suburban section of his work is like this is the environment in which I feel the most comfortable. I genuinely get pleasure in that sense of security from this type of attitude, culture, look, vibe, whatever. And I acknowledge there's stuff right under the surface.

Right? Right. Versus this movie is him being like this is Fundamentally alien to me. Yeah I choose to stay here, but all of this is weird. This business is weird The city is weird people people in it are weird. Yeah, I'll say something else. I think David Lynch is kind of weird in August 1998 straight stories in pre-production Lynch and Krantz pitch Mulholland Drive to Jamie Tarsus, the then somewhat legendary head of ABC.

Inspiration for Amanda Peet's character on Studio 60. A great character with the little tron. Basically pitches them... Passed away recently, kind of tragically. Yes, a little too young. I thought you meant Amanda Peet in the night. No, we still have her. Amanda Peet's still alive. Amanda Peet's Studio 60 character canonically dead.

She died filming season seven of The UN or whatever the show is that she's... I'm joking. She committed seppuku live during our podcast in Studio 60. Will someone please end this? Bradley Whitford chops her head off. She's pregnant with Bradley Whitford's tenth accidental child. Okay, all right.

David? Yes? We are so thrilled that this episode is brought to you with her chops her head off. She's pregnant with Bradley Whitford's tenth accidental child. Okay, all right. David. Yes. We are so thrilled that this episode is brought to you by our friends at Regal Cinemas. Regal. The movies. Theaters. The kings of movies. The kings. The crown is atop their head. Yep. When it comes to theatrical exhibition.

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Yeah, as our friend John Hodgman said a great movie about doors That was his line I'd give him full credit and a movie with an incredibly normal ending you need to see for yourself Is that fair to say absolutely? It's it's a movie that gets a great response from a crowd Going through the sort of rollercoaster arc of what is oh? But November has lots of big movies Griff sure right or two you've seen wicked I have seen right or two lots of fun doesnzel Washington having a ball? He's in it. I hear he kind of just disappears into the tapestry. Moana 2, right? Like this is like, you know, Thanksgiving's approaching.

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for regular theater goingers like us. Yes. Can't wait to see Red One and 4DX. They pitch essentially two pages, they say, which is basically like a woman who's trying to be a star in Hollywood finds herself becoming like a detective, digging into an underworld. Jamie Tarsis, somewhat to their surprise, is like, you have $4.5 million and can make a pilot. And does she approve at 90 minutes?

She approves essentially. Whatever it takes. They get a little bit more money from Touchstone TV. And so they basically approve a $7 million budget for a TV pilot, basically feature length, 90 minutes. They do demand. 25 years ago, at a time where no TV cost that much per episode. That is crazy.

They demand the closed ending. Closed ending, yeah, for the international. Sort of the same deal with Twin Peaks of like, you need to produce a cut that we could maybe like sell in Europe as a movie. Okay? All right, let's do it. Krantz hooks up with David Lynch with Joyce Eliasson, I want to say her name is. Who is an experienced, she did the Jackson's mini series, if anyone remembers it, with

Angela Bassett, which is really good actually. But kind of like an experienced TV hand, kind of the same thing as Mark Frost. Like here's someone who can manage a lot of the sort of day-to-day TV shit. Think about it must have been such a weird moment to be like, look, we're 10 years out, basically, from Twin Peaks, right? So now there's enough distance that everyone's calmed down a little from their anger over how it collapsed and Everyone's starting to feel like like it's an X Yes, if we give another try tomorrow, would it work? Would it work? Yeah, they're probably like look we don't know where Twin Peaks came from last time

You got to do your David Lynch thing, but everyone's also, let's keep a little bit more attention on this. Yeah. Yeah. Let's put some like steady hands around him with good taste. Yeah. David meets with her a few times and they don't get along part ways. He writes the whole thing himself. He delivers the screenplay to ABC. They ordered a pilot. So it's not like he fucking comes out of nowhere with the thing he makes. They have six pilots ordered. They only have room for about three or four. But nonetheless, strong contender.

The 99 or 2000 season. I think this would have gone to Aaron 99 probably. A few other projects that Lynch passed on or sort of you know considered at the time American Beauty Yep, the ring. Uh-huh and motherless Brooklyn Which you know was sort of kicking around at that time while all three make sense I mean like those are three separate parts of the Lynch worldview Right true. Yeah, the suburban discontent. Right. You can see what someone saw for him in any of them, but obviously none of these went

anywhere with him. Right. Jay were? Yeah, and the sideways detective story. Yeah. You're like, most of his movies are those three things happening simultaneously. It's fascinating to see three movies on his desk that are all just like, you just do this for two hours. David Lynch is casting process famously,

is he basically just looks at photos and just waits until something, you know, strikes him. Well, he like really trusts Joanna, right? He's just like, I'm assuming this person can act if you're showing me a picture. Sure. Naomi Watts intrigues him, Australian actress who had done some Australian stuff,

but I feel like when she is in this movie movie is mostly, I'm mostly reading that she was Nicole Kidman's roommate when she was a kid, a teenager. Yeah, someone when I said I was doing this podcast, I was doing the movie for this podcast was like, is that the movie with Nicole Kidman's best friend? Right. And I was like, burn, bitch. Yeah. No, I think that's a lot of it is like they both are like we're gonna go to Hollywood and try to make it and

Nicole Kidman hits right ten years earlier than Naomi Watts does and Naomi Watts is in why so strange Somebody's inexplicable things, you know who I was thinking about a lot. So strange, isn't it? It is It's not I think someone is serving the seaward over here. Somebody I understand what you're saying somebody Serving the seaward over here somebody I understand what you're saying somebody I just get married. Yeah, but yes, absolutely. Yeah, but I'm not saying she's not talented Yeah, I'm just saying they're early. It's interesting. You're right. Yeah, you're totally right. Yeah I I do I was thinking a lot while watching this both in the real nami watts narrative of her career Yeah, leading into this movie and of course the she's playing, where there are a lot of parallels. I was thinking that too.

What this movie represented for her as a chance to like basically get off the bench. Yeah. This is your shot to make them take notice. Right. We probably talked about this in past episodes, but this insane stat that for both Brian Singer's Superman Returns, if not additionally also maybe some of the earlier

developmental Brett Ratner, McG versions of trying to revive Superman, and for Nolan's Batman Begins, Amy Adams was the actress who screen tested against all of the candidates. Amy Adams was playing the role that would go to Katie Holmes, Amy Adams was playing Lois Lane. When those tapes leak out, you can see Killian Murphy in the Batsuit as Batman.

It's Amy Adams over the shoulder, right? Whoa. And they talk about that and how, like, when she got cast as Lois Lane in the Spider-verse, or the Snyder-verse, rather, it was this full circle moment, right? And you're like, okay, so Amy Adams was in this position where she had been living in Hollywood for like 10 years

and was respected enough that John Papsadera, the studio, whatever, was like, oh yeah, no, bring her in. She'll give the actors good things to work off of. Was nowhere near the conversation of getting either of those parts. Getting the parts, yeah. And in both cases, you're like, would have been better than the people they hired. One of them was the same type of person. And if in both cases, you're like, would have been better than the people they hired.

One of them was nice. And if you're her, you're like, what isn't happening here? All right, all right, all right. But you know what, I think this relates to the movie where you're like, I have the goods, I'm here, I'm in the room, I'm having the conversation, people are acknowledging me, and yet it's not happening.

Yeah. Which is the kind of thing that drives a lot of people crazy and leads to let's say a Mulholland drive ask psychology. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Now we want to classic David Lynch thing. He just, she's beautiful. I want to meet her. She's got quite a face. She really does. Yeah. She's beautiful. And she was like, yeah, yeah. Famously the first time he met her, she was like, I look like shit and I feel like he wasn't that into, like, you know, I wasn't giving my profile picture.

She'd just come off a plane or some shit. And so she asked me with them again, but she was basically like, this is like my story. Like remember, she's only seeing the pilot. She's not seeing Diane. She's seeing Betty. But that also, I imagine, seed something in his brain where he's now seeing her at her most tired and worn down. And then a second time... And then a sec comes back.

Right, maybe. Oh, this woman has the range. The range to do both. I didn't think of that because I read that story too and I was like, oh, I got a kind of icky feeling from that. And then I was like, oh, you just pointed it out. I was like, oh, right, he did have to see essentially both versions. And when I've heard her recount that story, she doesn't make it sound like,

well, he was judging me for looking tired. I think a lot of it's her internalization. She's in her head about it. No, he does say, when I meet her, she looked nothing like her picture. She didn't look bad, but she didn't look like her picture. And I wanted the girl in the picture. I thought, this is crazy.

I'm imagining a person who doesn't exist. So I asked if she could come back made up and she came back So I'm wrong. Yeah, he meets he did need to see both Laura Elena Herring was Miss USA in 1985 She's obviously like she is a change marriage to the Prince of Denmark for two years and hasn't been we've all fucking flirted with a European prince or two. Yes. She was briefly a von Bismarck from like 87 to 89. Wasn't that later? But yes, certainly she was in some royal family.

Let me find it. Yes, Karl von Bismarck. So actually, you know what? He's just the fucking prince of Bismarck, Griffin, and Germany abolished its royal family long ago. But he's still probably a count or whatever. He's got some castles. She was a countess briefly.

10 years later, gets cast in a David Lynch project. She met him at the 92 Can Film Festival where he's presenting Fire Walk with me. And 1999 years later, Johanna Ray is like, David Lynch wants to meet you again But this is also the kind of person David Lynch loves to cast where it's like they're carrying over some weird energy of like, you were Miss America and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess

and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess and then you were a Countess girl image-wise and like when you think about who he put in Twin Peaks yes yeah

and if you think about this is his next Twin Peaks like she makes so much of just this throwback totally yeah totally looks like someone from 50s Hollywood she's got Rita Hayworth she really does she really does yeah yeah the because they're both Hispanic yes yeah yeah yeah we will we will talk about it more I assume and it like it's certainly this movie is built in a way where of course, it's more of a showcase for Naomi Watts, and it makes sense that she's screen-boarded, but it remains wild, the absolute disparity between the Watts trajectory immediately after this movie, versus like, kind of nothing immediately. You're like, three years later, she's Travolta's wife in The Punisher

and hasn't really had good roles in between. I mean, I think Laura Herring is not the actor that Naomi Watts is, I guess. I would agree. If I should be mean about it. But she's pretty excellent in this. And you at least think she should have had a better version of the career she had off of this.

She's just perfect for this movie. She is. And perfect for David movie. She is. And perfect for David Lynch. Like, there's no question. Justin Theroux, kind of nobody at this point, right? Like, what did Justin Theroux been in? That's a good question.

No offense to him. I mean, he's had a great career. You're throwing bombs, lifting right. I guess, oh right, you know what? He's in Romeo and Michelle's High School Reunion, and he's so funny. Oh, right. He's in American Psycho. He's one of, and he's so funny. Oh, right! He's an American psycho, he's one of the zillion... Oh, yes, he is an American psycho, yeah.

He's in the business card scene. But that's basically concurrent with this pilot thing. That's true. That's true, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, he... So I don't... There's nothing really... There's definitely no, like, I saw his picture and I fell in love!

I mean, I don't know, he's great casting. It's a nice shot of Andy Warhol, yeah. Obviously a lot of the other parts here, Robert Forster, Monty Montgomery, Ann Miller, that's more classic Lynch of like, I want these old Hollywood people, who it's a Hollywood story. Or Monty Montgomery, my buddy who has a vibe.

He's old Hollywood though. Yeah. And yes, we write the money Montgomery story, Dan Hedaya for whatever reason. David has always thought that Angelo Battilamenti looks like Dan Hedaya's brother. Oh, that kind of. And he's like, I wanna do that now. I would like you two to play brothers in Little Holland Drive.

And Angelo's like, okay. Oh, that's him. I didn't know that. Yes, he's the guy who hates the espresso. Yes, he is. I did not know that. Shit. Yeah. If you could see my face right now, listeners, I'm good.

It's fun to tell people that. Yeah, I have no idea. Apparently Billy Ray Cyrus came in to talk about another part. I'm not sure. The name of the what's role? I think he... Betty. Betty slash Diane. I got a real strong take. And Lynch said he was Gene the Pool Guy, which I don't know how Billy Ray should be taking that. He is kind of incredible.

He is. So I guess. He's amazing. We don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but Billy Ray Cyrus has blamed him being on this movie for the dissolution of his family. Excuse me. When he and his wife were getting divorced and Miley Cyrus was going through her like, I'm trying to own being an adult and having sexual agency era out of like Disney stardom.

And Billy Ray Cyrus went to the press and he was like, my whole family is strayed from the path of good. We were corrupted by Hollywood. None of this would have happened if David Lynch hadn't cast him. No. What he says, I will say, I do want to give Billy None of this would have happened if David Lynch hadn't cast him. No, no. What he says, I do want to give Billy Ray credit, that he does say that David Lynch, I love him and he changed my life. He doesn't blame the Lynch. But right, but he's like, because...

It started the path. I was in it. I was right. My kid was now in Hollywood while I was doing that. And I remember feeling, quote, this is Billy Ray Cyrus, not me. This might not be what God had in mind. And then what he chooses to do is continue to write it out, make a ton of money playing her dad on her show. Like, it's not like... He's not saying like, Lynch cursed us. Yeah.

But he's like, that was the Siren song that called me over to Hollywood. Right, right. And then now my daughter, can you believe it... I did not put that together. ...has a body, and my wife doesn't want to be Married to me who's his wife? Well now she's married to Dominic Purcell

Trish Cyrus Maybe he's amazing in Mulholland Drive Billy Ray. He is fantastic. Yeah He me cucks the shit. Oh, there's nothing if I ever get back last guy better be Billy Ray Cyrus and he better like as I walk in just be like just just leave Your attitude is if I'll just be pumping off my face you have to be cucked. This is who you want it to be great I'm like this would piss me off so much. If it was this exact situation, you'd be like... His energy.

You would go paint mode? Yeah. Paint mode? Pouring paint. I was like, sure, yes. I paint a fucking jewelry box. I don't know what this says about me, but now that we're... I never thought this watching the movie, but now that we're talking about it, what does

it mean about me that I would just walk away? Oh, you would be like, you know what, buddy? 10-4, I'm out of here. I'm out of here. You know what? I would just leave. Fucking eternal sunshine, baby. I was just gone. I think the hand lid would remain on, you're saying.

I'm turning on the window wiper. Yeah, I would just get back into the Porsche. Yeah. I'd go golfing. Yeah. And I'd deal with it later. Right. Yeah, I do think to some extent,

if I walked in on the love of my life in bed with Billy Ray Cyrus But is she the love of his life? That was the other thing She doesn't seem that nice Good point You know, like, she seems Let me re- no, I think you're right Her reaction is so funny too where she's like

Now you've done it Now you fuck this up I kind of would choose to- You know why I would? Because of that, because she said that. I just be like, fuck the pool guy in peace without you being here and it being a problem. Let me correct my statement. Fair, fair, babe, fair. If I were dating someone and I walked in, she was in bed with Billy Ray Cyrus, that

was her energy and that was his energy, I'd go like, well, this was never going to work out. How can I feel offended? It's insane that you were ever dating me if this is what you yeah, you're gonna hear from the lawyer I would be more like for the lawyer. I would probably iPhone time. Just take a picture and leave. Yeah I just would like to speak for the audience listening right now The ones who are thinking I would lose my fucking mind and scream and rage

Just want to put that out there. What, Ben? We'll be 40 pink cats. Yes. What, if Billy Ray Cyrus fucked your wife? Fiance. Fiance. Oh, is he not married?

Maybe it's because... No, I'm saying in Ben's case. Oh, oh, oh, I'm saying we're specifically going to... I guess maybe... I would light a cigarette, take a couple puffs, throw it on the ground and burn the house down. Wow. Jesus Christ.

Maybe it's because I'm gay. I just... Maybe it's just because I'm gay. I think I would also just be like, I'm not this. If you wanted this, like, all right, take a tumble with old beat arms. My attitude is just, my basic operating principles of human being is if you break my heart, my icky breaky heart. Oh.

Keep going. Keep going. I just don't think you'll understand. What's the next line? I don't know. I just have to make that up. And if you break my heart again, it just brings it back. Yeah, a lot of repetition.

They shoot the pilot from Ohana Drive. Everyone has a really nice time making it, and Disney does not seem dissatisfied with the dailies. Jack Fisk said he got a little trouble from Disney getting their money to build sets and stuff, but that just sounds like we're gonna be doing. What's this fucking Scrooge McDuck was wearing payroll at the time?

He's not letting go of those fucking coins? He got to the backstroke. In April 1999, Lynch delivers an initial cut. He gave me a knowing look, go on. An initial cut that runs over two hours, two delivers an initial cut. That thought was fine. He gave me a knowing look. Go on. An initial cut that runs over two hours. Two hours, five minutes. Jesus. Oh, so they have to get it down to 80. ABC is like, David, 88 minutes.

That is your edict here. But that leaves, and then how many, how much is ads? That's what I'm saying. I think they're like, if you give us 88 minutes, it can be two hours. It can be a two-hour long. Yeah, yeah, yeah, got it. At a time where the longest any episodic show is is 44 minutes Like that's what's crazy to think about is he delivered something that was over two hours and they were like we were being Generous by asking for 88 minutes double what everyone else is doing. Yeah

So pretty quickly from Mary Sweeney, Lynch's editor and long time sort of collaborator partner, says- In Life and in Work. Yes. I think the minute they saw it, they were immediately kind of like, we're not going to do this. Right. You didn't recapture the magic.

It's not going to be Twin Peaks again. Despite V8 minutes, he did get it down to, like the pilot that you can watch in very shitty VHS form, it's sort of floating around. It is 90 minutes. So he clearly, you know, he gave them what they wanted, but he didn't really give them what they wanted. According to the network, it's not that good. It's slow.

The actresses are old. That was I think something I mean, which is funny because right with Twin Peaks, he's smartly is sort of like, it'll be like a high school show, so there's all these young people in it, along with my lovely collection of freaks. To them, it's like, why are you discovering actresses who are already in their 30s? These people aren't famous and they're older than 25? I have been in that position before in casting, where if you're looking for somebody of a certain age, you do kind of get into this weird space where you have to get,

let's say, let's just say, a male in his 50s. Let's just say that. And you need to either get an A-list actor, you know, somebody that has... If you're 50, you've either been working for decades or no one has found out about you. Right. Even if you're not presently A-list, they want someone who at one point was A-list. Exactly. And you could bring them back.

Exactly. Like, because you don't... Discovering somebody at the age that Naomi Watts is... That's a thing. ...is odd. And it's one of the things this fucking movie is about, to a certain extent, this feeling of desperation, right? And going back to sort of the Amy Adams thing, and Amy Adams and Naomi Watts,

both people who seemingly didn't go crazy, and when they got their deserved shot, were like, great, I'll get to work. I'm a professional. And I'm not saying it doesn't happen because what happens to Naomi Watts with this move You know like so it's not course it happened, but it is when you're in that position. You're in David Lynch's position It's odd the industry does genuinely go wait a second if you are over 25 And it hasn't happened yet. Yeah, and other people haven't taken the chance on you Yeah, what do they know that we don't? That we don't, exactly.

There is a fear-based... Yep. There must be a reason we have not yet uncovered. Well, I realize... Why hasn't this apartment rented? It's low. The price is low. It's been on the market for two years. And this does...

It must have bed bugs. And this... Right? Like that's sort of their thinking. They're like, if you're 30 and you haven't gotten famous yet, then there's a problem. And it does relate back to the movie, because what you're saying, which is absolutely correct, is it is a fear-based way of thinking, and Hollywood, the main fuel of Hollywood is fear. And those, right, the people who are making the decision, deciding your this is not your fate. It's fear. It's fear It's absolutely fair. Yeah, they're operating on a fear-based system

And then they are thus creating yeah on the people whose lives they control Yeah, and even greater sense of fear Yeah, and so you end up in this state where you feel like you're in a fucking David Lynch movie It's it and you're like what is this reality? I am in does it ever change? Do I ever become the other person I want to be? The movie. And what is the exchange of that? What do I have to do in order to get that? And that's literally what you just-

What do I need to protect and make sure I don't give up? You just gave the- That's the whole fucking movie. That's the log line of the movie. Yes. That's the log line of the movie. And that's why I'm only half joking when I say it's a biopic. Like it's my- Yes. Because I, and I even think at the young age

that I saw it, which was 20, you know, I still sort of... As somebody that was in theater school and had aspirations... Yeah, it just... It did cement in my mind, you know, this is what you're entering into. It isn't Sunset Boulevard, which is like a big... You know, he's got the car, he's got Paramount, he's got the street sign.

He wanted to put some of the score in the movie. Um... So it's not gonna be that. It's also interesting to think about this movie being whatever it is, 15 years after Blue Velvet sure and the amount of hand-wringing yeah in the press and such of people being like is this movie exploitative is it evil how dare he do this Isabella Rossellini right is it abusive and it's like that woman becomes

his life partner wife for a number of years, wife? Partner. Long-term partner. You know, and has always been like, no, I felt completely treated properly. And for him to 15 years later make this thing that is in many ways about his own experience coexisting in LA, but is also sort of him doing this act of like, what does it feel like to be on that side of it? And is there a position where you can feel like, no, I have complete autonomy. I want the guy to do the version of the scene where we get real close.

And I'm choosing to do this, and I'm getting juice from it, and my performance is great, and then maybe 15 years later do you back up and go like, what the fuck was I doing? Exactly. I think that's what I'm saying. Well, anyway, we can talk. I want to talk about that scene later. We're going to go through Mohan Drive like a fine tooth comb, but I do wanna tell you that ABC passed on the pilot.

I'm sorry to break this news to you. Wait, shocker. May of 1999, they said no. I'm just hearing this for the first time right now. Lynch now says it's a blessing. Standing at the tarmac, putting a finger behind my ear. Lynch says, look, I do think the first thing I sent them was too slow, the two hour cut.

But then I do think the finesse cut was kind of not good. Yeah, compromised. Right, the rhythms of it were off. And I look back on it now and I'm like, it was fate. It's better the way it turned out was the way it was supposed to turn out. The show that everyone assumed they would, ABC would put it on Thursday night at nine.

The show instead that they order is a show called Wasteland. Wasteland. Kevin Williamson show, follow upup to Dawson's Creek, starring Sasha Alexander and Rebecca Gayhard, gets canceled after three episodes. And doesn't it get canceled, like, like the day or the week that Straight Story goes into theaters?

That sounds right. 1999, fall of 1999 or something. It's so funny to think about David Lynch at this point, just like deeply entrenched in two different sides of the Walt Disney Company Like a movie he made Independently with foreign financing is now bought by them Yeah, and released by them at the same time. He's working at ABC and trying to get through their development process I also just can't imagine Lynch in the development process No, it is hard to imagine any of this and I do think from what I've read about it

It's like he has a person who's usually good at like kind of right being a middle person between him and a studio Not that he's playing to say is Right like but the other also like hey David the studio said this like but maybe knows how to finesse that with him So at this point he is like a proven brand like all these oh, yeah Bring him in for the meeting or like oh, he's doing the David Lynch is David Some extent they must be excited that they're like where does he fucking get these ideas? Well talks this way rumors Rumors circulate that HBO might pick it up. I'm trying the goofy was one of the execs in the room. Okay?

is ABC Doesn't happen sits on a shelf Pierre Edelman at Studio Canal, who has worked with Lynch in the past, finds out about it. The French HBO, basically. Yeah. Sure, I mean... Canal Plus is...

Yeah, it's TV, but they have a film... They produce the rentals. Studio Canal. But just to create a sloppy analog for people who don't know. He's basically like, there's a David Lynch project, complete or almost complete... It's a jump ball....that's there. He's basically like, there's a David Lynch project, complete or almost complete.

It's a jump ball. That's there? That's sitting there. Right, he finally hears about it, and Lynch is like, look, I don't, you know, I don't want to hear about that. I don't want to think about that anymore. Like, it didn't work out.

Edelman raises $4 million to buy back the right one. Sorry, not to interrupt you, but he also hates that the pilot is out there. He does, he's very upset that I can watch it. Yes, he's very upset about it. Which I had respected his wishes until I was like, I'm doing a podcast, I'm finally gonna see what it looks like.

And I know Mohandar so well now, but I will be okay. Pierre buys it for four million. Four million dollars. The money against this movie at this point, what is it, 12 million? That sounds right. Okay. I guess.

It's like, right, sort of seven million of Disney's money, another four or so of Pierre's money. Wow. Yeah. They have to then essentially convert it from TV pilot form to cinema form, so they have to deal with that. What amount of time had elapsed from when they filmed the pilot? Do you know? What amount of time had elapsed from when they filmed the pilot? I will tell you, he gets two million more dollars basically told,

go shoot a third act. So 14 million? Yeah, we're piling on here. Lynch is anxious. Like he's like, I don't know if I like, you know, if I have a third act. Maybe he should have tried Transcendental Med meditation. I hear it works very well. He's worried that like the sets have been struck, like how am I even gonna do it?

And so there's a lot of anxiety about that, but they figure it out. Supposedly Tony Krantz, the agent guy who we've been talking about, who had sided with Disney basically and sort of helped fuck the funny, um, Krantz, the agent guy, who we've been talking about, who had sided with Disney, basically, and sort of, you know, helped fuck the project, threatened to sue him at one point. Yeah, they had a big falling out.

Seems very fraught. But then, finally, David Lynch sat down in a chair, and the final act of the movie came to him, LOL, as JJ put in the research here. Beautifully said. I sat down in a chair at 6.30, and at seven, all of the ideas were there. They came out of darkness and made themselves known. Cool.

Sounds good. At eight o'clock you take a shower. But that's classic him. It's just classic him. He's just like, remember there's one interview with him where he says, if you forget an idea, if I forget an idea, you fall in love with ideas, and if I forget an idea, I wanna kill myself. Yeah, right.

He literally says, I'm gonna commit suicide. Every idea is valuable, friend. Yeah, yeah. And so he starts writing, and yes, they essentially, you know, almost all of the reshooting they do is the third act of the film. They do a little bit, I think, of finessing for the stuff they already have.

But basically, they're just reusing that. Like Winkies. But they, right, but then they do also, of course, have to call Naomi Watson and be like, good news, Mulholland Drive is back. Interesting news, the third act is you as a new character. There's lots of sex scenes. There's gonna be nudity.

This is gonna now be a feature film in Europe. It's a completely different thing. Your contract completely changes. I'm assuming there's some sort of re-degotiation of the salary, because it's so different. Yeah, there has to be. Right? Yes.

Yes, oh, 100%. Yeah. I mean, I do think it's one of the fascinating, just sort of like in the soup things about this movie is when her character shifts, it's not just that she is a skilled actress who is playing a second character, but it's like you feel like she is a fundamentally different actor. I can't. Her approach is different to the parts.

She doesn't. In terms of process, not in terms of interpretation of character, where I'm like, this is the difference of when she's shooting the pilot, it's that nervous pilot energy of like, this might be the next 15 years of my life, am I on this forever? This is my big shot. And then by the time they go and film the third act, she's gone through the process of like, grieving for the thing that went away. That's right, that's right.

I guess it doesn't fucking happen. And coming back to do it, you feel her having kind of don't give a shit energy. They also like magically fuck up her teeth. It's incredible. I don't know what they did. What was that? I don't know. It's so weird.

It's so weird. But you know what I'm saying? I do know what you're saying. There's a sense of abandon with how she plays the last act that is someone who doesn't have anything to prove. So they shot it, just to answer your question, Griff, in October 2000. So we're talking basically like close to 18 months after they shot the original.

Imagine the fucking cycles. It is a mindfuck, yeah. Of the true creative career grieving in those 18 months. Yeah. The film premieres at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Liv Allman's Insane Journey Jury gives it to the Sun's Room, the Palme d'Or, which is an okay movie. It splits best director with man who wasn't there. Festival, Liv Ullman's Insane Journey Jury gives it to The Sun's Room, The Palm Door, which is an okay movie.

It splits best director with man who wasn't there. Lynch shares the best director prize with Joel Cohen. The Sun's Room, it's an Italian drama about a family that loses. The film that beat Sun's Room. It was released by Universal slash Focus in America, came out October 2001, expanded to about 250 screens, made about 7 million domestic, 20 million dollars worldwide. And let's think of it this way, Leslie, it might seem like weird, like, oh, the Sun's Room beat Mulholland Drive, and man who wasn't there, that feels like rude.

And then you step back and you're like, well, if you look at the Ken competition slate in 2001, Mulholland Drive did win one award over Shrek. Shrek was there! I just want everyone to think about they were in competition the same year! Who was that? Was that Cannes? Yep. A 2001 Cannes Film Festival, a great slate, including Kareada's Distance,

Man Who Wasn't There, Millennium Mambo, a wonderful movie, Moulin Rouge. That might win. Moulin Rouge. Moulin Rouge. Mulholland Drive, the Piano Teacher, the Haneki movie. Oh my God, I love that movie. The Sun's Room, What Time Is It There,

one of my favorite movies, and of course Shrek. Yeah, no, this slate, it makes perfect sense at the Sun's Room. Oh, I love the Piano Teacher, geez. I think the Sun's Room, which I have seen, was just, it's a weepy, it's a well-made drama that's well-acted. Yeah, like Shrek.

Yeah, like Shrek. Moholland Drive came out, and yeah, people thought it was okay, and so, Ben, do you wanna hit stop on the recording? We're done. Thank you so much, and as always. Let's talk about Moholland Drive. Film begins with a jitterbuggy scene.

Jitterbugging scene, my God. When we did our Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon episode with David Ehrlich, he said, has any movie ever announced it's a masterpiece faster than Crouching Tiger does? Which he said half as a joke, but he was just like, the title, the beginning of the score, the first image you see of the city.

I'm not saying the opening of this movie is bad, but if you were to pause it on the first 15 seconds, I don't think most people, which I just did, would expect flat out masterpiece widely accepted as one of the greatest films for me. That's so funny of you to say. It does not begin like a masterpiece in an obvious way.

Well, okay, I suppose. I love the- I think it's a great opening. I pointed out to my friend recently, like that's the jitterbug competition. Uh-huh, and she was like, oh, I never thought about it that way I just kind of let that wash over me and I was like, oh, okay Well, that's the didger that she says she won a jitterbug in competition. Oh shit See, I was surprised to realize a lot of people don't put this together cuz they're like, oh, I'm in a David Lynch movie Yeah, I didn't know I thought he together. I thought he was just referencing swing.

That's what I thought too. I thought it was swing dancing. I think there's a bunch of people doing a sock-pop. And I was like, oh, it's like people changing positions and whatever. Yeah, I did think that was... Well, clearly I didn't read the 10 clues clearly enough because number one, pay particular attention in the beginning of the film. At least two clues are revealed before the credits.

The most important thing before the credits and the thing that makes me laugh every time I think about Mulholland Drive and how people are like, what is going on? And when I say people, I realize I'm talking about abstract things. Lots of people understand Mulholland Drive very well. You have the jitterbug. Thank you, David. I'm not saying you, I'm saying like, I just hate saying you.

Oh, so you think I don't understand? You don't understand, shit, no, no. I didn't know it was the jitterbug. Then there is a point of view shot of someone's head hitting a pillow. Hitting a pillow. Sure, yeah. That is, like, it's like, it feels like a studio. I know it wasn't, like, the shooting being like,

I don't know that people are gonna get that it's a dream. Can we have like a shot of someone going sleepy time bed buys on their big red pillow? Like I'm just worried. Like, it's just funny that the movie starts with someone going to sleep. And people are like, I don't fucking get it. What could this possibly be? To be clear, I know lots of people get it. It's a dream story.

Yes. So it begins with someone going to sleep and then we see the opening credits, which were the opening credits of the pilot, which are the car snaking through Mulholland Drive as that beautiful music plays, the title shot of the, you know, the sign with the lights flickering on it. Such a cool shot. Credits rolling and Laura Herring, this glam bomb of a lady in a slinky dress, is gonna get murdered in the car, we assume, or right outside of it? Is being driven to, it feels like nowhere good. Right, and then they'll get out of the car, like they have a gun,

and then some joyriding teens disrupt this assassination and cause a big car crash, and then she stumbles down the hills into LA right the City of Angels and as she stumbles her memories fall out. Yes It's also very comical that she travels from Mulholland Drive on foot. Yep to West Hollywood very much my experience of Los Angeles. And it's still nighttime. That was my life. It's just, she would, that would take her a day and a half. It's perpetual night. Yeah. A day and a half to get there. Also, she's in high heels. How's she scaling this? It's just, it's just, I know, I know I shouldn't take it literally.

That was the first hint, right, I got that something was askew. No, you're right, you're right. Pre-RideShare apps, when I would go out to LA to like piloties and do auditions, take meetings, whatever, I'd show up at places and they'd be like, do you need parking validated? And I'd be like, no, I walked. Yeah. And they'd go from where? And I'd go Santa Monica. And they were like, that would take five hours. And I was like, yes, it took five hours. That's why I'm caked in sweat. I would just fucking walk. I took the bus. I straight up took the bus. I would do that as well. If I could take the bus, I would take the bus.

Sometimes the bus was so complicated in terms of the amount of transfers. A lot of transfers. Or you miss the time and you're like, the next one's in half an hour. It's actually faster if I walk for two hours. Yeah. I'm surprised you didn't skateboard.

I'm not that cool. Then the next thing we see is the great Robert Forster looking like a Primo snack. A million bucks. He really looks good. The great Brent Briscoe, who we've shouted out. I gotta be proud of him in the show. A Raimi favorite, of course. Exactly. Great character actor. But it is so funny where you're like, well, these two guys would be like the sort of like Greek chorus of the mystery

you imagine on a series version of this. Not to talk about the pilot too much, but weirdly Briscoe is in the opening credits and Robert Forster is credited as a special guest star. Now, I don't know if that's Forster just getting some kind of like special billing. Can I tell you what my guess would be? And Leslie, I think you'll probably back me up on this. Especially at this point in time where people who were considered movie actors, there was a stigma against TV.

Yes. Very often. It's like how Edward Herman is always billed as a special appearance on Gilmore Girls, even though he's in every episode. Right. Where they're like, even if you have like a contractual, you're guaranteed X number of episodes, you don't want to be locked into the regular thing where they actually own you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

For seven seasons, that's the thing. That's the thing. At pilot stage, you're signing up for seven seasons potentially. So a guy like Forster is like, I will probably do every episode, but you need to structure my contract in a way where I could bail it out. I could leave at any time, yeah.

So we see Laura Herring, her character, is not yet named, but'll take the name Rita. She has amnesia. She sees a Gilda poster. Hiding, right, but she hides out in this woman's house. You see this woman with red hair, who we actually see again at the end of the movie. Supposedly Diane's aunt. She sees a woman leaving the house and is like, great, open house.

The next scene in the film is the Winkies diner scene. Yes. It comes quite early. I was really did not remember that it was that early. I didn't either in which Patrick Fischler and who's the other guy? That's a good question. He's got, cause he's also got kind of a recognizable face.

Yes. Are sitting at Winkies diner, which... Is it Denny's? Right. Like, I assume it's... At Gower Gulch, which is just... Is it still there? The Denny's? Probably not.

When I lived there, it was. It's on Gower and Sunset. And it's this weird little... I mean, I know it has some history of like the Copper Penny or whatever, but like, you know, in the mid 2000s when I was there, the Denny's was still there. And it was, it's like a little strip molly. The actor's name is Michael Cook. Okay.

What's he from? Just a bunch of shit. Not much. He doesn't have a Wikipedia page. No offense. Embarrassing for him. Now embarrassing. He played casino lecher in Showgirls.

Well, hey, so he's one of our favorites. Uh, sorry, about the Denny's, yes. No, no, no, it just, uh, when I was talking about, you know, these kind of spaces in Los Angeles, this scene very much sums up that... you know, shitty middle of nowhere, but in the midst of everything. Yeah.

And by the way, these are the types of spaces where I feel most comfortable in LA. But I think... Like these weird, like, what is this diner that feels like it's in the middle of the suburbs but is actually... But it's actually on sunset. And feels kind of frozen in time. Like when I would take these fucking two-hour walks to appointments and I could find a diner like that in between, I'd go inside and I'd be like,

I feel safe now. Yeah, well that's true, yeah. Psychologically, not like from assassins. I think what Leslie said is interesting. Because what do you guys think of the Winky scene? It's an incredible scene. I have never been so scared in a movie theater in my life. Well it sets you off balance immediately. And it's fascinating that that wasn't part of the pilot.

I would have guessed it was. Because the... Something I noticed this time around, it sets you off... I mean, I remember seeing this in the theater and just being like, this is the most terrifying scene I can think of. But I hadn't lived in LA yet, so I didn't really recognize this as like the shithole safe haven that it is.

But the real thing is the coverage with the jib doing figure eights, basically. The camera never settles, ever, in the overs. Which just keeps you on edge. You're like, why is the camera not locking down? It just won't stop. It just... So you never get your bearings in terms of... Is someone gonna stand up? Yes, and the rhythms of the camera do not feel like they are in sync with the rhythms of the performance of the actor.

You're like, what's motivating this? The thing with Fischler, too, who'd only been in like a couple movies at this point, is... One of my favorites. He's got such an incredible face. And he's nervously describing to this... The other guy, no offense to Michael Cook, the casino letra that he is,

he looks like a regular fucking Hollywood guy in his 40s, right? Fischler has the most unique energy, voice. Fischler's got these eyebrows. And he's describing to the guy, like, I had this terrifying dream and you were in it. Yes. I was here, you were standing over there, and there was something behind the diner that was so scary, I woke up and I can't even think about it. It's so scary.

I never want to see that face in real life. Now trying to confront essentially what happened. Two things I want to call out about this. One, Lynch is a guy who mostly makes films that if not directly inspired by his dreams Operate on dream logic. It is often used in shorthand that the most annoying boring thing is telling someone about your dream Sure, right. Yeah, and here this guy is like 20 years into his career Basically opening the movie with a scene he answers later after just like a prologue that you can't make sense of Here's the first scene that's on its face kind of straightforward

Right, and it's a guy explaining his dream true. That's true, which is interesting to me It's it's the first time dreams have been like textual in his movies outside of doom point. Yeah Yeah, I know and doing he's like attaching that on to what's already pre-existing text I would actually disagree with you know, because are very, very important to Twin Peaks. Okay, you're right. Because Twin Peaks is Cooper saying, I had a dream, FYI, and we have to now do this thing because I had this dream, and of course,

my love, Harry Truman being like, sounds good. Elephant Man's basically about a guy who can't dream and wants the dream. I just had this, yeah. I just remembered in Lynch on Lynch, he tells this story about that he would go to this Denny's. I think it was this actual Denny's that he shot in and he felt again, he's attracted to this like wholesome concept.

So you going there as a safe haven actually now makes a little bit, it like clicks for me. I think I connect to the same things Lynch does that feel comforting. Like there is this part of me, even as a weird city boy, that's like that kind of suburbia frozen in time 50s aesthetic feels really comfortable. How much should I say about what I think this scene is about? Say everything. Okay.

Can I make one second point very quickly before you say this? Because I think this is really fascinating. I don't know if any of you know this. In the Lynch casting of like how he loves to use Nappo babies or like former old Hollywood stars. People who have like some Hollywood weight in them. Patrick Fischler's father ran, it just announced it was closing very recently, a legendary sort of like dive diner in Santa Monica called Patrick's Roadhouse.

He named it after his son and his son was the mascot and says he basically fell in love with acting by being like the Barker outside the restaurant. Hanging out with these actors who would come hang out. And it's this place that you're driving down to Santa Monica, you will always see it on the road. It's got this green sign. It's very cool. And it's got all sorts of shit on the roof.

It's like what if the aesthetic of like a TGI Friday was on the roof instead of on the walls inside? It has like a T-Rex and a Statue of Liberty and shit on the roof. It looks pretty good. The kind of place that I guarantee you Lynch loves, right? Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And here's this scene in a diner that is being carried by an actor whose father ran this

kind of diner that is notorious within the industry and people who live there. And that is his legacy. Whether that's intentional or not, it's all interesting, like, meatball. Because he loves to cast people who are carrying some thing with them, whether it's stated or not. Yeah. So, all right, well, just to be clear, what happened, and Leslie, whatever you want,

but obviously what happens is they have this conversation. The moment that to me actually sort of sticks with me the most is he's like, so now go pay and go be where you were in my dream. And then he looks at him when he's standing there and looks terrified. And then of course they go outside and Lynch does this amazing thing

where he switches to the POV of him walking down the stairs and you're like. Yeah, the steady cam. It's so, like. And then weirdly he clocks the payphone. He's like tagging stuff. He looks like, there's garbage over there. Why am I going back here?

It's the middle of the day. It's like first person shooter of mundanity. I was thinking too that it was just this weird kismet thing that this is... That in Zodiac, the Lake Berryessa scene is the scariest daylight scene. Daytime scares are hard to do but if you pull them off, very scary. This would be like a very close second. Just like there's no shadow, there's no cover and yet this is absolutely terrifying. And much like we talked about in that episode about that scene you're like what is unnerving is the weird

sense of like normalcy around this horrifying thing? He's walking. He's walking. Right. There's... And you're like, the tension of this is unbearable. You can tell he's tense. He's sweating. And the audience is like, this is a David Lynch movie. What the fuck is about to happen?

And what happens is an insane noise plays and a weird, dirty hobo slides out and the guy seemingly kind of like has a heart attack and you lose your mind. Played by Bonnie Aaron the Nun. That's right, played by the Nun. Played by the Nun. Of Blumhouse's The Nun.

Of the Nun fame, the Titcher the Roll. Famously they built some prosthetic for her and Lynch was like, no, like I just want, just put shit all over her face. I want her bone structure. She has an incredible face and the nun is basically the same deal where they like put a lot of paint on her, but they don't change her bone structure. And she, I read an interview with her. She says, what she mostly remembers is that how hot David Lynch is. Because she was like, there's a lot of him staring at me

and us carefully putting together the look. And I was looking in his eyes a lot of the time and he's so hot. He's gorgeous. She says hot, which I really like. She was horny for Lynch. Do you know what's interesting? This is another point about her bone structure.

There's this thing where if characters are largely created through prosthetics, the studio can claim they own the light Right, it's not your underlying face and they have cut her out of like merchant shut for the nun Because they're like what's our design we own right and she's like, it's my fucking face. It is your face There's no my face. There's no rubber. You just painted right? But I don't mean build physically, I mean like they took her face and they embellished. But they can't argue like, well, but the nose is ours.

Yeah, no, it's hers. I just feel like. Yeah, I want your take on this. What you said about the Winkies is so interesting to me about the diner, the actual location, that it's like this, cause I do feel like this is some sort of like, it's a, the movie is largely a dream, right?

For 90 minutes of the movie, we are in Betty's dream. I wanna go on the record and say, I don't think it's a dream. Okay, well, that's- I think it's about a dream. I like this- That's what I would say. We can talk about it.

But let's keep going, let's keep going. I just wanna make that clear before we- If you subscribe to sort of the general theory of like this is mostly a dream and then the back half of the movie, the back half of the movie, she wakes up and she's different. But why do we think that's reality?

Why do we think that's, because it's actually... I'm with you. No, no, no, wait a second. I kinda wanna get it. Okay, we'll get there, we'll get there. Finish your point first and then we'll figure it out. I'm not saying that this is like, this is the definitive take on Mulholland Drive, all the evidence is there, blah, evidence is there. The ten clues.

But we are with Betty for most of the time. We're with Naomi Watts. This is a person she doesn't know, right? But we are with, much later in the film, this is where she, Diane, the real Betty, or whatever, the other Betty, asks Mark Pellegrino to kill Camilla. Yes. To do a bad thing. And when she's doing that, she looks over and sees Patrick Fischler standing there.

Standing there, yeah. And it's this moment of fucking his eyes are boring into her because he's Patrick Fischler. God bless him. His eyes bore into you. He's got those pussy willows over those eyes too. He's got those big old brows. Wiggle around those fucking caterpillars. He looks like that meme of have you seen this face, right?

In your dreams. Yeah. And it's like she was being seen. It's like a creepypasta. Yeah. Exactly. At the lowest moment of her life or the darkest moment of her life. And it's like, the diner is this liminal space.

It's like in between dream and reality, which you're saying the real diner kind of is. You're like, what is this doing here? It's like the surge protector in Wreck-It Ralph. It's where all the... Right? That's another Ben's choice. Yeah, that was a big one. Both of them. and Wreck-It Ralph, it's where all the... Right? That's another Ben's choice. Yeah, that was a big one.

Both of them. Both of them, we dimmed together. Like, and what this guy is doing in this scene, be he a real guy or not, is he's kind of like, I had a dream about this place, I want to go into it. Right? I'm trying to kind of recreate the dream. I'm going into the liminal space of trying to think about this. Trying to recreate it.

Which is basically what Lynch tries to do as an artist. Yeah, exactly. And it's like he's sort of crossing or he's trying to... He's literally stage directing. And like, shit is wonky. Like you're saying the camera work is wonky. The perspective is just, who are these people? What is that thing behind there?

Like, I don't know, like that's the classic Lynch thing of Bob or all these creatures he creates where it's like some kind of representation of an evil or a force or like, you can do whatever you want with it. Well, what's your take on it? That's my take, is that really clear? What I just said?

That like, just that like, you're in, that is like, because of the thing that Diane did. Winkies itself is the transitional point between states of consciousness. But I'm not saying it in a way of like, if you go there, you get to go into the dream world. I'm just saying like, it's just like... Well, that's what Wreck-It Ralph is like.

Well, I would say that my experience of watching... There's like a blurriness to that place. Right. Yeah. And that's, you know, what he... Why he's drawn there and why it freaks him out and why the thing from his dream is there. This is what I like about talking about dreams, is that feeling where you wake up and you're like, huh, I have a weird feeling, I can't shake it, even though whatever I was just going through immediately now doesn't exist.

You have some lingering feeling. And then for me at least, this is how it often works. Like halfway through the day, something I will come across will trigger the memory. Fuck, that's what the dream was. Right. And then I start reconstructing, oh, okay. So that was part of it.

And then what was the other things there? And you're trying to understand why was I dreaming this and why did it fuck me up so much? Why is this still being held in my body? Which is basically what he's trying to do like let me go back to the space of here in the diner you stand there Can I like reconstruct this in a way where then I can? Deconstruct I think that I think as we go through this I feel like I don't have I think it'll be really interesting This conversation because I think I would love to hear, I really am dying to hear takes of like, this is what,

but I also feel like what I can contribute to the conversation is the experience, again, the experience of it. Like when I was sitting in the theater and I watched the scene, to me, first of all, I didn't understand what the fuck was going on until, this scene was the scene that locked me in. And I just, I went, boom, I'm in the movie now.

Like up until this, I mean, the amnesiac girl, I was kind of like, okay. I mean, it's a setup, you get it. Yeah. But this actually locked me somehow into the movie. I was now, you know, for lack of a better term, like hypnotized into the movie. And I think that the experience of it is everything that you guys said, the setting, the performances, the sort of odd, um, retracing the steps. But to me, it's almost the thesis statement of the movie,

rather than meanings, again, rather than meanings of it. Is that he's describing a dream and then the dream is now in reality. So there is, there's a, so there So there are two things that are concurrently happening. There's the dream and then there's the reality. And that those two things actually do exist at the same time. I agree. So this is what's interesting to me. And David's probably about to tell me that I'm wrong.

No, I'm not going to tell you. There's no wrong with this movie. With this movie, no. It's my fundamental belief. You can think whatever you want. Yeah. No. I watched this and my interpretation more is that the last act of the film is the dream.

A lot of people would make that up. Kate, you guys are crazy. I fucking said! You are going to say that and you... Why do you think the last act of the film is the dream? Why? Because two tiny little people come out of a box? Like what?

That doesn't happen to you in real life? What are you talking about? But to my point, I think you are the most right, even more right than Big Smart David. Let's be, let's be, let's argue rightness. Because it's about the relationship between the two. Yes. That's the actual truth of the movie, right?

Because I think one of the things... That to some degree it's about the blurriness of the relationship, too. That's right. Absolutely. It's a woman looking at another woman and going, I wish I were her, and being both sides of her, and you could read either way. So that's why I say it, it isn't, I don't think the movie's a dream. I think the movie's about a dream. Because I think that he, Lynch talks a lot in, in McKenna's book about how he believes

the mind works this way. He doesn't, he believes believes the mind works this way. He believes that the mind is not separating dream from reality. That like you were saying, you can be walking, you can have had a dream, then be walking in reality, see something, and then you're back in the dream. I sort of know what he means. I mean, he's trying to describe an indescribable feeling that I think anyone has had. Can I briefly tell a stupid dream story?

It is brief. Don't sigh that loudly. I think I should have sighed loud. But not that loud. Actually, Ben, if you could actually, like, put bump up my side. I would bump that up. Yeah. Put a little reverb on it. All right.

This story will make me sound crazy, and I swear, that's the point. I'm doing that on purpose. Go ahead. In college. I have a dream. I think this is after I see Into the Wild where there's the scene where Kristen Stewart begs Emile Hirsch to sleep with her and he says like, I can't. You don't know what you want and leaves her. I had a big crush on her as an actress I was like I cannot imagine someone making that choice to leave the fucking trailer

You've talked about this on the podcast multiple times that that's that feeling right your revulsion at the very idea that someone would reject Case two Maybe I have a dream that is the most like emotionally mature Interpretation of me being in a relationship I had ever had or felt in my life, in which the person is Kristen Stewart, but I am consciously in the dream going, God, Kristen Stewart's good in this dream. She's playing a character. It's a Kristen Stewart type performance in a different context. She's not an actress, this and that.

And I go through this whole cycle of how we meet and how we date and then I'm going back to college. She's in a different context. She's not an actress, this and that. And I go through this whole cycle of how we meet and how we date, and then I'm going back to college, she's in a different city, and is like, be able to work long distance. And I wake up the next morning, and I'm in college in California, I don't have a car, I beg my friend, I'm like, you have to drive me to fucking Blockbuster. And I go through the used DVD bin to find any Kristen Stewart movie, and I'm like, I can't process this until I watch her in a film.

I'm now like hung up on this idea of this fake character she played and I need to somehow like create a separation of reality again and I like find a used DVD of In the Land of Women and I watch it I'm like okay she exists back again in movies. I don't know if I should build on this because I do feel like it will we're we're 15 minutes into the movie. Keep going. I think that that is an experience that I've had many, many times.

Many, many times. I would cast actors in my dreams all the time. Specifically Mark Ruffalo. I... Kind of the Kristen Stewart of... Mark Ruffalo, you can be in my dreams any time. In a lot of ways. In a lot of ways? In a lot of ways.

You know, saw, you can count on me, a year before this, in the theater, that man dropped into my consciousness in a way that I could not shake. I could not shake until he played the Hulk. And then I was like, I'm free. I'm free. He's gone mainstream. And you know what? He's always angry.

Leslie, that was my exact relationship with Kristen Stewart through the Twilight. It was when she got to Twilight, I was like, you know what, she belongs to the culture now, this isn't about me. I'm safe, I'm safe, you know, I just. The exact same arc. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah.

Ben, what does the Winky scene mean to you, if anything? Do you have any sort of relationship to the Winky scene? The Winky scene's about my experience in college and buying the DVD of In the Land of Women. That's what it's about. That is the one correct interpretation, Ben. I also find it terrifying. Very scary.

I feel like... It would be weird if you were like normal scene. Happens. Happens all the time. Funny. Well, yeah. I mean, don't you guys have monsters that live in your dreams come to life? Slide out on frickin' dolly tracks? Vibes are immaculate.

I got on frickin' Dolly tracks. Vibes are immaculate. I feel like I have dreams where stuff that takes place then come true. And I am a little bit of a believer that I do think that sometimes your future arrives, or like visions of your future arrive somehow in your dreams. Like a deja vu kind of... Yeah, and I have that experience a lot,

but I also find it really terrifying how sometimes I'll be like, I feel like I've dreamt this before. Like that experience is really scary and weird. What throughout your 20s, you kept having recurring dreams about listening to idiots talk about movies for hours. And then one day we rang your doorbell and said,

have you seen the Phantom Menace? He's going... Exactly. That's true. Yeah, so I find this idea of being like, you know what, I'm gonna actually like follow the path and see where this leads. And then it's like real is quite scary.

You gotta kind of own it in your waking life in order to process it. Yeah. In some way or another. Yeah. David. Yes. I got great news. What's up?

And it's kinda, it's kinda, look, sometimes you take great news for granted. Like great news, David, you're alive. Yeah, great news. Love to hear it. There's oxygen in your lungs. Woo! The sun is in the sky.

Okay. And this episode is brought to you by MUBI. Ah, Curated Streaming Service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. But it's important to step back and really appreciate how lucky we are. Okay. To have our episode sponsored by MUBI. We love MUBI. We love them.

It's a great service. Each and every film is hand-selected on there. You can stream the best of cinema anytime, anywhere. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there's always something new to discover. And sometimes you can walk out of your house, step, step, step, step, step, into a movie theater. That's a projector sound.

Or if it's a digital projector. Popcorn! At this movie theater, the popcorn is sold by like a guy from like a baseball, like a baseball popcorn. Popcorn! Guys are watching a movie, he's like, this is my thing! Peanuts! People come to this theater for me to do baseball popcorn sales, but in a movie theater!

And all of that experience is brought to you by movie. No, it's not. But what is brought to you by movie is sometimes films that they put up on the big screens. Yes. Just what is brought to you by MUBI is sometimes films that they put up on the big screens. Yes. Just what we like. We like that MUBI is holistically involved in movie culture. And yeah, and they've been putting out

a lot of interesting movies in recent times. Every year they've been stepping up their game. It's really exciting. Their new film, which is in theaters, US theaters on November 8th is Bird, the new film from Andrea Arnold. Now they phrase it here as the long awaited return to fiction filmmaking. It's been eight years.

And the last film she made, scripted feature length film, she made, was your favorite film that year? Yeah, 2016 Blanky, David Simms winner, American Honey, best picture for me. Yeah. A great movie. She also made Fish Tank, which I feel like a lot of people have seen. She made Red Road. She made Wuthering Heights. And her new movie is Bird.

It's a tender and compelling and beautifully surprising coming of age fable about life in the fringes of contemporary society. Kind of her strong suit. That's absolutely right. Yes. She finds very interesting ways to explore right communities you might not see on film as often.

You know what's another thing I love about movie? finds very interesting ways to explore right communities you might not see on film as often. You know what's another thing I love about Mubi? They, in their copy, for the first time have answered for me definitively, how to pronounce the name of the star. Go ahead. This film with its buzzy cast, features,

Barry Hewitt. That's right. Don't say the G. We know him from Saltburn or, Yes. I mean, Franz Rogowski. G. We know from salt burn. Yes, I Mean friends. We're going to use of insurance. Yes. Yeah anyway, but yes, and then you've got our house favorite French Bukowski yes friends regal ski from passages and Transit on Dean great movie one of my favorite movies of Alaska and then a plus a revelatory central performance from a newcomer, Nikaia Adams. Another thing Andrew Arnold has quite attracted.

Right, latest in a series of notable debut performances from Arnold. You got a canon of formidable female characters vying for freedom from oppressive systems. You know, Red Road, of course, you had Kate Dickey. Oh no, sorry. Well, yeah, Red Road was Kate Dickey. That wasn't a discovery. No, that wasn't. But in Fish Tank, you had Katie Jarvis and in American Honey, you had...

Sasha Lane. And she's still crushing it, seeing Sasha Lane all over the place. Look, New York Times called it a beautifully shot, delicately moving coming-of-age story. Little White Lies said, it's a magical, energetic marvel from one of the UK's finest filmmakers

and David wouldn't know anything about that. But she's the best and the movie is really, really worth seeing and it's really great to have a new Andrea Arnold movie out there and it's in theaters on November 8th. Here's what you can do, you can go to movie.com slash bird for showtimes and tickets, see if it's playing anywhere near you. And additionally, you wanna stream some great films at home.

You can try Mubi free for 30 days at mooby.com slash blank check. That's M-U-B-I.com slash blank check for a month of great cinema for free. And bird will eventually end up there. Bird. Bird. David. Yes. It up there. Bird. Bird. David. Yes.

It's fall. Ah! It's officially happened. We've fallen into a new season, a new time of year. Oh, I'm excited about ditching the shorts and the flip flops. I'm relieved. I love layers. I like to hide as much of my body as possible, and it's a thing I find cumbersome in the summer. Yeah, you like to get shapeless.

I like to get shapeless. I hate wearing long corduroy pants. You hate wearing... In peak summer heat. Oh, right, right, right. Because I don't want anyone to ever perceive my legs. In the fall, it's normal. I'm comfortable.

Now you can get your leather jacket, your cozy cashmere sweater, all this nice, high quality stuff, Griffin. But there's a problem. There's one problem, David. I have no idea where to find this stuff. I got you. Yeah. What's that sound coming from?

Oh, I see what you're doing. Let's check the blank check chalkboard. Who's this mysterious man sitting there running his nails against the board? I can find those foreclos for you. I get it. It's a quince. Quint from Jaws. fall clothes for you I get it it's a quince quint from jaws what do you mean you get it are you some kind of fancy college boy you think you can find fall clothes on your own my name is quince and I sound like Liam Neeson yes for some reason you sound like Liam Neeson I'm a

fall clothes hunter okay and I'll find it for you. Sweaters, pants, jackets, the whole darn thing. To be clear, you're Quint, but Quince offers affordable, high quality essentials for any wardrobe, right? You're wrong. I'm Quince. My name is Quince, and I am supporting a brand

that I have no direct association with, but I'm good at finding their products. I'll help you find them. Sure. Well, Quinn's only works with factories that uses, uh, safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices. And they've got premium fabrics and finishes and they partner with these, uh, uh, factories directly.

So they cut the cost of the middleman out and pass the savings onto you. So those items there are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. I assume you know all this because you are quints. I want to make it clear once again. I don't work for them. You hire me and I order clothes for you from their website. I've used you then because I have some quints clothes and it was really, really easy to get what I wanted fitting perfectly basically.

And this really like nice fancy high quality stuff showed up for the price of what felt like normal clothes shopping. I just need to clarify again, you didn't use me. The problem is that you went to the website yourself and my services, you hire me and I manually purchase the items from the website. Your bid is just too complicated. No, my business is terrible because Quince makes it so easy to purchase high grade items. No one needs me anymore. This is kind of my deal.

It feels like you guys aren't really engaging with my struggle. I'm kind of not, but I can tell fans that you can upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with Quince. Uh, go to quince.com slash check for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's q u i n c e dot com slash check to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash check. I'd say, yeah.

So you got some items yourself? Yeah. Yeah. What'd you get? I think I got a sweater. I think I got, I think I got a sweater and some, some very nice shirts. Yeah. Good thread count.

Yeah, sure. Be mighty tough for a shock to buy through those. Good thread count? Yeah, sure. Be mighty tough for a shark to bite through those? It's not really a major concern of mine. It is a concern if you cheap out, you buy bad product. It's very high quality. It's sort of, it's better than a lot of the stuff I've gotten online. Okay, well maybe mention that.

I feel like my voice is getting away from me. Winkies, it's this sort of picture perfect diner, right? It's very, like you say, throwbacky all American and behind it is like this like monster, but also essentially the bum is just a homeless person. Like it's like, right? Like you can take it as you like, but it is basically a dirty, unhoused person, right?

May I say that when this happened in the theater, I closed my eyes. Yeah. So I had no idea what happened. You didn't know what they saw. You just knew something fucking happened. I knew it was something fucked up. And finally, you know, I watched it.

By the way, watched it again, still did the same thing. It was only when I was watching it with my boyfriend at that time, where he said, you have to watch it, you have to look at it. And then he made me do it. It came out it it came out I think that she came out I screamed and I said and I said, okay, it's okay. It's okay And he was like, yeah, but you didn't know it was gonna be a gooblin

And so now every time I see it, I think that's a good one. That is a good way. This guy sounds great. I Think already like him a lot of you call wonderful. No He's fucking fantastic. I'm seeing him next week. It's like, but it right like, you know, like just again, if you're just thinking about this is like a weird liminal place where it's like there's sort of window dressing over something we like to ignore. Right? Like this kind of person in terrible circumstances or this monster of an evil we can't understand or like someone who's in control of everything,

or just a person back there that isn't the real problem. I know I keep reading most Lynch films as being about this, but his sort of like, guy who lost his keys, guy who has a headache, but no, the incredulity of like, what are these rules of society that everyone agrees to abide by? This is so strange that we all just are like,

this is normal and this is what we do and this is how we act and all this sort of shit. Talking about a diner like that as a place of comfort and security, part of it is you're like, well, I just need to eat food and this is comfortable and it's homey. But there is this thing of like,

and there's this unspoken rule that unhoused people are not allowed to walk in here. I'm not saying that is the number one value we put on private inside spaces. Right? Right? But in theory, it's like if you're inside a business, there's an idea of like certain parts of reality are supposed to be kept at bay.

I also like that he keeps cutting, once she leaves, he keeps cutting back to where she was. Yeah. And there's nothing there. Yeah. Yeah. Which is also when you're like, why are we coming back? Why are we still here? Why is the camera still filming?

Slides out, he goes, uh-huh, you know, and then the music goes out and becomes this crazy sort of sound. Right, they play All Star over the opening credits. Right, we see her slide away. Shrek kicks down the outhouse door. There's a flush, weirdly, even though in theory there's no plumbing. The next sequence is Mr. Roque, Michael J. Anderson, the small person who played the man from another place

in Twin Peaks in a full-sized human suit that has been created for him to sit in. In the world's longest room. Like in this crazy kind of Twin Peaks-y room that's all curtains and shit. When you say human suit, it does sound like the Eggers suit for Men in Black. What you mean is a full size.

You're right. I don't know how to describe it exactly, but right. The sort of prosthetic of a six foot tall person that he's sort of sitting in. And I guess one assumes if this was a TV show, we would have had more of him. It's just such a cool, like they built this crazy like rig for him to be in essentially. Oh, that makes, oh, I see. You know what I mean? Like he's, he's, you know, he's sitting

and he's playing a big person. But he's also shot from a Ned Beatty in network distance where you're not quite sure what you're seeing for most of the time. Right, you do, you know, but then- Oh, that's a good reference for the way he's shot, right? Yeah. And it's like- And it's similarly dark and distant and there's like nothing else in the shot really other than him Even though he's so far from so lit kind of similarly. Yep. Yeah, totally in shadow sort of shadow anyway

There's just sort of like a strip of light that's illuminating him in a lot of the other room is a little abstract Yeah. Yeah, this is the first time in a David Lynch project Michael J. Anderson gets to like speak. Words that go forwards. The whole time. Yeah. They were never backwards at any point. Call someone, says the girl is missing, someone else calls someone else, someone picks up that phone and calls. A red lampshade. Phone is ringing, no one picks up. I'm just mentioning that. It's very important in my opinion. And it is one of his clothes. It's one of his clothes. I was gonna say it's one of his fucking clothes.

But no, it's very, well, if you got, you know. Notice appearances of the red lampshades, number two. It's Diane's lampshade. We see it. My favorite phone is the one that has a light right on it. I love that phone too. A big sort of trucker hand picks it up. It's going on there.

It's wild. And? It's just wild. And then we're with Betty. Betty, beautiful Naomi Watts, getting off the plane with these nice old people. It's just the woman actually. She meets her husband. She meets her husband. My immediate experience watching it for the first time

and seeing Betty was I hate her. Well, I hate her. Because she's a pain in the ass. She's like, oh my god. I just hate that you're just like, who is this optimistic about shit? Who is this like unhaunted? I just trust people like this who just seem like.

I also hate her sweater. I hate the thing. Her little pink cardigan. Oh my god, it's the worst. It just, beautiful woman. It just annoys, it's this tiny thing that annoys you. Well, because it's the buttons and it's not really closing. It's not the right size. And she seems to have... Again, this is why she sunk in.

Like, again, I'm gonna keep using that word. I would sink into the scenes and really sort of make... make a split-second decision of how to feel about it. And this one was immediately, I fucking hate this woman. Yeah. It also looks ADR, this whole scene. Here's the other thing. The whole scene is ADR.

It looks really, really fake. There's like a heightened artificial emotion in this scene that unlike the Lynch-like weird heightened uneasiness, it's just like, why are they acting like this? It's almost like fucking Verhoeven Starship Troopers. Everyone be as broad. Watts talks about it. And as clean and as happy as you can. Oh, what did she say?

Watts is like, that I would be like, I'm just so excited to be here. And then she'd be like, more. And she'd be like, that's crazy. I can't go crazier than that. Right, yeah. And she'd be like, yes. You need to be as outrageously sweet and simple as possible.

I think beyond that, it's just like, it's all surface level. It's performances that are not only really loud and large, but like have no subtext to them, right? Seemingly, at least. At this point, the subtext is created by the... Is a cute blonde girl who says she won a jitterbug competition in Ontario, and on the back of that is like,

guess it's time for me to go get cast in movies. You know, like, I'm gonna go be a movie star. But Nellie Watts can obviously play great depth and as the film goes on, you start to see that bottom develop in her. But at this point, it's like, this is top floor only. She is saying the line, she's opening her eyes wide. Yeah, it is text.

It's text. No, the subtext comes later. From the movie? Well, I agree that it's the rest of the movie, but it's the rest of the movie, but it's the scene where the old people are in the back of the car. Smiling. It's the period on that scene. Over no dialogue. Is the two of them in the car smiling at each other?

And that's, to me, that's the period of the, like the end, like the punctuation of the scene. Saying, now here's the subtext. Right, and here's the other thing. They later in the movie directly say like, you're not fresh off the bus, are you? Here's this scene that's basically a fresh off the bus scene.

Absolutely it is. But they're like, well, but it's a plane. You know, like some of the details are a little different. No, no, but they do make this distinction where someone says to her like, you're not like one of these naive, I just won a jitterbug contest. Like they're basically saying,

you're clearly not the kind of person that you are. She shows up at her aunt's home. I want to ping this. This is very a West Hollywood... Architecturally. ...architectural. Meaning I have been in so many of these. Right. These kind of like little housing courts, right? Yeah. Where it's like lots of apartments and this big courtyard.

Again, the old Hollywood connection, I think this is where little starlets would live. My friend just moved into one of these. I think literally one of the ones in this lot that they found there. Like when they mentioned Sierra Bonita, Sierra, oh, Sierra Bonita, that was the first street I lived on

when I came to LA. Yeah. The iconic Ann Miller, who had basically not been in a movie since 1956. She has a tiny, tiny cameo in one other movie. I remember telling my mom, Ann Miller's in it. And my mom being like, what? Ann Miller is alive and in the movie?

And I'm like, yeah, she's her Cookie Lillie. It's her only performance across those five decades that she remains alive. The iconic and beautiful dancer Anne Miller, best known I think for Easter Parade and On the Town. On the Town and a million other, you know, Stare, Kiss Me Kate.

Kiss Me Kate, yeah. Playing a, again, if you're thinking about it in TV pilot form, kind of like a very lynch-y supporting character, right? This is great. We have Peggy Lipton. Again, connection, yeah. Like we have this old Hollywood lady.

Lord knows what she'll do, but she'll be around. She's some paprika, you know? Weirdly, again, like Patrick, it's like, I don't need to give visual context for what this person is because they're just that person. Exactly. Right. I mean, I'm going to put her in pearls and all that, but I think Coco, the lovely Coco,

who is the nice landlady in this part of the movie and then is this kind of imperious mom in the later part of the movie. Right? Like it is the two sides of like the old legend, right? Where you're like, oh, this is so cool. This person who has all this history in them. And then later, like the way she's sort of scary, you're like, right, that's like a gatekeeper.

Like a jaded. Right. Also like everything evil in Hollywood is like this person who's like, okay, sweetie. Yeah, here's the person on the absolute other end of the experience that let me walk, wishes she could start. That's right, 100%.

This is the end, conclusion. This is the business end. Even the best of circumstances. You're the Kooky landlady. Ann Miller being the iconic star that she was. You make it into the tapestry of film history. A name that my mom will hear and know right of course I know who Anne Miller is yes. This is the best. This is the end. This is the end

Yeah, and that you want to desperately get to that end and in both realities. It's like this is where it ends Obviously there are some Shots of dog poop which ABC was like why the fuck did you know dog poop? I love him so much. He's ABC pilot, and he's like, I put another shot, it's coming back to it. And then, by the way, they got dog poop in an overall deal. I just have to say... Spent like three seasons trying to slot it

into different pilots, and it just didn't really stick. I want to talk about the dog poop. I want to talk about the dog shit. Please. Because I think, again, this thing about Lynch that I just fundamentally disagree with is that he's presenting the ideal or the good, and then he's undercutting it somehow.

There's worms! In the dirt! I think it's that one shot from Blue Velvet that cemented everybody, sort of like, well, this is the take. The underbelly! My personal opinion, the way that he talked, again, I've read sort of more David Lynch talking than watched his, I've seen this one a lot of times, but he constantly is sort of name checking that these two things exist at the same time. There isn't one that's better than the other.

He's not saying the proof is the truth. Exactly. He's saying, no, yeah, you have your nice Hollywood courtyard, but the dog still shits in the fucking courtyard. And Miller says he's gonna bake his little butt for breakfast. These things are married. And when they... Exactly.

And then when she walks into the apartment for the first time, it's also POV steady cam. So it's the same shot behind Winkies. So again, you're immediately unsettled. You're like, I mean, whether you realize it or not, he's using the same shot behind Winkies. So again, you're immediately unsettled. You're like, I mean, whether you realize it or not, he's using the same language. Yeah, you're like, hmm. No, no, no, when she's walking through the apartment for the first time.

So you're like, at any corner, the gooblin could come out. Freaking gooblins, man. Freaking gooblins, man. And it's every now because of Paul, that's every time I see it, I just think she's a goobler. Yeah Yes, indeed right. She's led into this apartment and who is in the shower behind the glass door but Laura Herring as Question mark sure woman. Yes, and our mystery begins who is this woman and without being crass

this is a body that reads with like a striking announcement through fucking paperglass. Yeah, sure. Like here's someone who looks like a Coke bottle. Yeah, no, sure. Abstracted, where you're like, what is this shape? She was Miss USA. Yes.

Right. And she sees... I don't think it's crass to say that. She sees the Gilda poster. She decides to call herself Rita. Because she doesn't remember who she is. Right. And how she got here. Here we are in this Hollywood dream and we have these two like golden age Hollywood archetypes.

We have the ingenue, you know, the bright eyed bushy tailed one and sort of like sexy mystery. Like what's going on dark noir on... Rita Hayworth and Ginger Rogers. Well, I also think that their states of mind also sort of sum up your first experience going into Hollywood, which is one of... And again, I think they can exist at the same time, which is, you know, that exactly what you just said, the bright-eyed ingenue, but then also this woman who has completely lost her identity.

Right. Like actually enters Hollywood going, I don't know who I am in any way. And you tell yourself. I'm literally going to be a Hollywood actress, essentially, a Hollywood character. I'm gonna create my personality in real time. Right.

Based on the stimuli that I'm getting from Holly. Which to some people, they're like, that gives me a sense of autonomy. I am in control of deciding which of these things I'm going to do in order to become the person I want to be, versus an Emmy watch who's like, I still believe that my path to success and immortality can be much like me winning a jitterbug contest.

I show up and do what feels right to me and everyone will go great job thumbs up I think she is all of your thing like oh boy change at all a Hollywood mystery Like who's this right anyway? We move on from this to one of my favorite scenes in the movie in a movie film It's all my favorite things which is Justin Theroux being sat down, hot director, you know, being sat down and said, the studio just wanted to have a meeting. And in walks the two chillest people in the world, a silent Angelo Badalamenti and Dan Hedaya

just looking into his briefcase so he's just all forehead. Like it's just like dark shadow forehead. He's almost doing the Clooney. He's doing the Clooney. And he just like, you he just swipes over it now. I don't want to be mean about Melissa George. Do you know Melissa George? I don't know her personally, but I was those,

what was it, three years that she was a thing? I sort of vaguely remember that, yeah. It kind of felt like the mob was trying to force Melissa George on us in real life. I agree. It feels mean for me to say this, but it is just funny that this is the girl is about Melissa George who is someone who went through this. Don't you love Melissa George? And I'm like, she's fine.

I don't know. I hate to be mean, but it's about these people. But it is so true. It's like all you go through these like seasons of, of, of faces, right? It's like, and I hate to be, I hate to say this, but like in my mind, it's like the Gretchen Maul, you know, the classic, you know, no offense, you know, with the vanity fair. And then honestly, Ryan Philippi, like I just was like, why is this person... Why is this person just here suddenly? I feel like he is not discussed enough as the male version of that.

And I have always been like, I didn't ask for this. But like, even a great actor... But again, Hollywood marriage. Around a little too long. Around a little too long. With someone who was legit. A guy I love, like Colin Farrell. Like, you know, the initial backlash Colin Farrell faced that he then, you know, he emerged

and evolved or whatever. It was like people being like, we can smell you trying to force this guy on us as a movie star and we're not sure how we feel about it. It's like even though they have the Jews and the talent, it's like they were sold in the way that makes you go, look, this has mafia vibes. I do not want to go off on a tangent. So I'm just going to say this very briefly, and I hate to be the person name dropping. Colin Farrell is probably the best Hollywood meeting I've ever had.

Look, Leslie. A stunner. I am not. I hate to tell you, you've now, there was an off-ramp and David's going to welcome this conversation. Class act, class act, beautiful succinct, beautiful succinct conversation. David will not move on from this. I will move on quickly.

A beautiful text after receiving the material. A beautiful text. A beautiful long text. Leslie, it was lovely to meet you. Exactly. Lovely to meet you. Do you know what David has on his desk over there? Tell me.

I got him a little Lego Colin Farrell in Minority Report. Colin Farrell's my favorite. His number one guy. My favorite guy. David's number one guy. Oh my god. Leslie, I will also say this. You are the second person I know who had a general meeting with Colin Farrell that didn't

end up going anywhere, but also reported to me, that's like the best fucking meeting I ever had. What a guy. Always. What did he say to you about raising your daughter? I can find the quote It's the it's my pinned tweet on the normal website X that I never visited anymore It's such a great. It's such a great quote He said the graveyard I told him that my daughter was a year old and he said they grow keep watering her and make sure

She gets sunlight. It was so cute. Oh He said she didn't even mention he said they grow they grow That was coconut a friend of Leslie Headland. Yes, yeah. When I asked to interview him for After Yang, and Koganada was like, I know you love Colin Farrell, you should just talk to Colin. And instead I interviewed them together because Colin was being an unselfish star and trying to share the...

But as the interview began, Koganada was like, Colin, this guy loves you. I'm not going to talk. Like, you should just talk to him. And I was like, no, we have to, all of us have to talk. But anyway. Do you folks know that Melissa George, this is the girl. This is the girl. That's what the scene is.

Is the mob saying, this is the girl, the road being like, what, what are you talking about? This is my movie. You can't pick my actress. What do you, you know, but what, what are you talking about? This is my movie, you can't pick my actress. What do you, you know. But what do you wanna say about Melissa George? I wanna pull this up, get the name right. Melissa George has patents for inventions, physical. Shut the fuck up.

She created a thing called StyleSnaps, quote, a device intended to allow changing pant hem length without sewing that was sold on like shopping networks in Australia, and still makes tremendous money to this day. And she's like, that's my main income, it's never been acting. Well, good for you, Melissa.

Sort of like talks about her career in the way of someone on the business end of like a Mulholland Drive experience, or she's like the one consistent in my life, the thing that's kept me above water is that I created stall snaps when I was 22 years old before Hollywood tried to sell me on everyone. The aesthetics of this scene are...

If someone was having a dream about how Hollywood works a little bit... Like, Justin Theroux has his golf club laid out in front of him like a sword, right? Hidayah has the briefcase from which she's just pulling headshots. Here's a meeting, we are deciding that this person's a star. Badalamenti is silent. And if you disagree, then you will be executed. And then essentially, what looks like basically like a hotel bellhop, a giant man in a red jacket comes in with a tiny espresso,

gives it to Badalamenti, who drinks it and will not let it profane his throat. So he spits it onto a napkin and says it's shit. And everyone loses their mind and they're like This is really one of the best espresso's in Hollywood I don't know what's going on and Hedea screams at the top of his lungs The people in these corridor of power boardroom meetings who get to make the decisions that change the world or at least change The entertainment we consume the tapestry of the public consciousness in mainstream media,

our lunatics who spit coffee into napkins and act like blubbering idiots, but also all of this feels kind of completely random, right? Like the core moment of this movie for me is Naomi Watts not to jump way ahead, nailing this audition and then looking at this other woman and being like, I'm about to knock at this part for reasons that have nothing to do with me. And their decision of like, we're telling you it's this girl. Yes.

There's like a controlled chaos of the scene. Yeah. You know, it's like, even though everyone's still- It's incredibly tense, you're not really sure why. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yes. There's like this thing, one thing that I wanted to ask you guys,

there is like, what's interesting is that there's a hard iconography with some of the characters, like the bellhop, and then the sort of blandness of everyone else, not unlike the other guy in the winky scene. There's this sort of wash of white guys in a suit. But I was curious, like, what's the visual reference for Thoreau? Is it Tarantino? Is that the... I feel like it's that kind of a guy. The black shirt, the glasses, the...

I think it's the sub-Tarantino. I think it's the guy who wants to be the Tarantino. Yeah, it's like, weird. I wonder, it's like, I love the idea of Lynch just sort of going, he's wearing these glasses, his hair is like this, he's got a golf club, like, there's something about... I think it's a bit of self-parody as well. Like, Lynch with the up hair. I was gonna ask. Yeah.

Right, you know. But that he's... Not that he's a self-insert character, but it's like the design of the character feels like... But who's the younger 99 version of him, but also the version of him who is like, well, I gotta play the game to some degree, right? But he also... You immediately clock him as the director. Yes. That's what I love about Down to the golf club. Yes. Yeah

Go ahead so hot I was gonna say my distinct memory is watching this movie on DVD with my mother and he comes on screen And she gets hot and bothered and for years after that It was like Justin Theroux was her number one celebrity crush. Like where's Justin Theroux? Why is he not in movies? And anytime we were watching something that he was in and my dad would walk behind us and go really him? And let's just say kindly, he's very handsome. My father is about as far off from Justin Theroux as that person could possibly be. They're just very different types of men. But it was this thing of my mom being like Justin Th Theroux. Like, I saw him on the street.

I saw him at Cinderella. Justin Theroux. Like, she'd say it like this, and he'd be like, he's got like tattoos and spiky hair. What are you talking about? This is certainly Lynch parodying and working through hilarious, awful, evil Hollywood meetings he's had and putting them through his filter and his, you know,

style. And this is the version of him that is 20% more amenable to the terrible Hollywood nuts. Right? Right. But then also- It's a self-insert, but it's also like a kind of a shadow self-version of how his career could have gone astray, say if- He didn't have final cut. Like if he didn't have that, again, the blank check,

like if he didn't have that, then he'd be this guy, or he'd be stuck in... Dune had gone okay. Amen. Right? And he was like, I guess this is a partnership. Yeah. I make movies, I meet in the middle. Dune is the best thing that ever happened to him. That is our exact take.

I think it's his take too in a way. I mean, well he hates talking about it, but like, put him on the path he needs to take. In Room to Dream, he says that when you have the blessing of a massive failure, is there the only way, the only direction is up. You can only go up from there. And also teaches you everything you never want to do again, rather than those being abstract ideas of maybe I could do something like this. Yes, that's right. But within the text of the film, I do feel like now again, obviously in the TV pilot version, this is clearly just going to be a plot is Justin Theroux plays this director.

He has to cast Melissa George, what happens next? How will he interact with Betty? But if you're thinking about, you know, this is the sort of scenario of a scorned Hollywood starlet, right? Or a person who didn't make it. Yeah. This is them being like, yeah, this is how the fucking system works. Like it just, you know, in a wood paneled office, suddenly a shadowy mobster is like,

no, you can't cast her. You're Annie Adams. And why are you always in the conversation, but you never get the job? And of course... It's not completely out of reach. It's within grasp and yet somehow you always in the conversation but you never get the job? Um, and of course... It's not completely out of reach. Yeah. It's within grasp and yet somehow you never grab it. Yeah.

Thoreau freaks out. There have to be forces at play. Smashes the window with his golf club. Yeah. And we cut to Mr. Roque, then Michael J. Anderson again, who's just like shut everything down. And that's that. Yeah.

The next scene, which again, this is the one I was like, this isn't in the pilot. You like this scene. I like every scene in Mulholland Drive. Sure. No, is Mark Pellegrino talking to another guy who's laughing and the guy is clearly explaining what went wrong with the hit on Camilla, Rita, whatever. And this is crazy, the droid writers.

And then Mark Pellegrino. This scene is everything I hate about LA, is that LA has people like this in offices like this. Well, but then aren't you happy that he gets shot and his hair turns into like a sort of fry, you know, arrow? It is the feel-good moment of the movie for me. And then this insane slapstick plays out where the hitman accidentally shot someone else, in another room has to kill her and then there's the cleaning man Who's just staring blankly? This guy too. Are you saying that you used to assume? I was like there's no way that's in the pilot. And it is right? Yeah, it was in the pilot. Yes

It's all in the pilot So I guess that was gonna be something else too, right? Once I went over this guy. Sure What do you guys any anything you want to offer on Mark Pellegrino taking out an entire group of folks? No, I mean that's what's funny about this movie is just this thing of like the difference of, I mean now it's fucking changed a little because TV shows are told to conceptualize themselves as 10 hour movies or whatever, right? Right, right, right, yeah.

But it used to be like this thing is so scattershot and you have no guarantee of how many episodes you get that when you're designing a pilot the idea is how to put enough pieces in play that like there's open expansive terrain of where this could go. Yes. You conceptualize a character like Mark Pellegrino and maybe there's a fixed endpoint you hope you get to or maybe not. Maybe you're just like, you know what this show needs? A type of guy like this.

A plot thread that exists in this kind of universe. I got a real sense of, again, watching the scene for the first time in the theater, I got this real sense of parody. I got this real sense of like, because I feel like what was in the water then was this Coen Brothers Tarantino. Sure, absolutely. Elmore Leonard, Barry Sonnenfeld. Right, this scene feels like it could be from Get Shorty.

Yeah, it just feels, and then the parody of it is the continuation of just like, it feels like his commentary, or maybe not commentary, but his experience of watching, of the temperature of Hollywood at that point. Yes. Genre-wise. Yeah.

That it's like, we see, is the next scene Thoreau again? No, the next scene after the big hitman thing is Betty and Diane like going through her bag and finding the money, the key, you know, and I can't, I said Betty and Diane, I'm sorry, I'm so bad with the names. Betty and Rita. Betty Veronica. No, Rita.

And Rita crying and being like, I don't know who I am. Like, it're in the mystery Advancing basically can I ask the two of you as people who've studied this movie far more deeply than I haven't seen far more Times than I have on the Lynch clue list. Oh sure number three is can you hear the title of the film that Adam Kesher? Sylvanian North story. Yeah, and you hear it. You do hear it it twice. What is the meaning of that? Explain! Yeah, I'm not gonna do this with other things, but that was the one where I was like, I missed that,

and I don't understand what the importance of that is. So the Sylvia, I mean- Say it again, the title? The Sylvia North Story. Okay. So the movie that he's directing, Kesher, right, that's his name, the Justin Theroux character,

seems to be this kind of like American graffiti, 50s throwbacky thing, right? Also some biopic-y. Possibly, I mean, the name is absurd, right? Like the Sylvia North story. She's some kind of singer. Right, the audition scene is like a singer. What I'm never really clear at on is what the audition Betty does is.

Because it's not for the Sylvia North story. No, that's what the project is not going. Because it's a different director. Right. It's this like... But later in the movie when it does get mentioned again. When does it get mentioned again? It gets mentioned again when she's at the house party. In the other world.

They ask how Camilla and Diane met. She says, I was up for that and I had a smaller role. And then she doesn't say that Camilla was great in that. Yes, and doesn't she say, she said the director didn't like me and he says Bob Booker or Bob Booker, whatever it is. And so that's the director at the audition.

Right. The project has also like transmutated. Yeah. What the project, the brass ring project, the star making project is, has changed at the same time that the identities have changed, you're saying basically. Right. Yeah. So the project that's never getting made has become the project. The project that got made and then made someone a star.

So, to me, it's not necessarily like a... I don't know, again, I don't want to ascribe meaning to the movie, but in walking through that, it does feel like... And because we see the cowboy again in that scene, at the dinner party, it does feel like the random fate of Hollywood. Meaning the line between success and failure is so thin and it's so ephemeral. And that's why I keep coming back to this idea about the movie that it's not good or bad or better.

It's not real or fantasy. It's that these two things are so close to each other and almost indistinguishable, and yet they feel wildly apart. Exactly. And that's the whole experience of trying to live in a city like this that is run entirely on everyone's ambition or fear. That it's everyone who doesn't have it trying to figure out

how to get to the other side and everyone who's on the other side being terrified of it going away. You're also metatextually looking, you know, where you're watching a movie that David Lynch initially made for a television network. Yeah. Right? And then when we exit the TV network version of it and the other shit made with European money. Right. It's like, so it's like, so I'm kind of with you on like, is that reality? No, it's an entirely different way of storytelling. This is what's interesting too, is like when we're talking about, that's weird. Why would he put the Mark Pellegrino version in the TV show?

You're watching and trying to go like, so what would he have done for that character over X number of episodes or seasons? Versus him then going, well now this character is a closed loop. Everything I ever want to say about this character happens within this yeah No, there's more Mark Pellegrino in the movie like that's what I'm saying though. Oh sure yeah Yeah, but like right now. This is what I have to work with right this now everything I want to say has to be in this movie right yeah And it's the same with every character in this film

But obviously you can sort of you know if you want to be more basic about it I guess you can write you can sort of, if you wanna be more basic about it, I guess you can sort of think of it as like, this is her rerunning something that didn't work out for her. As no, what I did was I crushed that fucking audition. I was gonna be taken to him. We meet our eyes lock, like this is my moment. Then it's like, but Adam, you have to watch,

Melissa George is about to do our audition and you have to say this is the girl. Well, I also think that there's also then it's like, but Adam, you have to watch, Melissa George is about to do our audition and you have to say this is the girl. Well, I also think that there's also this feeling of like, when you compare those two scenes, that there's this, she is triumphant in this scene, but the film is not getting made. And the other version, she fails miserably and the director doesn't like her, and the movie is a success.

You know, so there's this feel... Again, this is why I hesitate to say one's reality and one's not. Because those two things are outside of her control. We know she's a great actress because we saw it. And the feeling of that audition room and the weird reality that's created within it that she, like, accepts and enters into and, like, wins the game.

And then you walk out the doors and the behavior of the three other women who should be her allies in this industry, you hope. Aren't there three others? No, two. But they're like, ugh. Doesn't that woman come in at the end though? What a disaster.

Maybe someone else does it at the end. Yes, well, they get introduced there. The old casting agent lady is basically like, that poor guy, he's never gonna make that piece of shit You were great that her first line walk out the door It's like their performance has changed their energies changed that second they leave that room. What a disaster Yeah, you're feeling the way Naomi Watts. Do you mean? And they're like no no no you were incredible none of that means anything right that was nothing

Yeah, that's a bunch of something and now it'll work out in some other way. And I'll bring you across the street. And again, that's the experience of being in Hollywood, which is like, you can do the best that any... I mean, that scene is transformative. When I watched that in the theater, I was like... You know, I've been watching... You're kind of experiencing it, experiencing it, experience it.

When she does that audition, you're like, who the fuck is this woman? And it's the metate that audition, you're like, who the fuck is this? And it's the meta-textual thing of like, who the fuck are you? It is that for Naomi Watts as well. And this is the thing in terms of like casting Ann Miller, casting Patrick. It's like, I am going to, instead of going with the, he could have cast, I mean, I guess because of the TV of it all, he probably couldn't cast a movie star. But even still, he could have cast someone who was more well-known in TV, but not in

leading roles or whatever the fuck. Yeah, or he could have, like, not unlike Kyle McLaughlin, he could have convinced an actress that he'd worked with before to say, like, this is gonna be something special, etc., etc. If not a star, he could have found a more familiar face. Exactly. Versus someone who really was new to anyone who hadn't watched Tank Girl, a future Ben's Choice episode.

Oh, God. So, yeah, so there's the... So he is... What's odd is that he over and over again relies on your public consciousness of something that you probably don't know about. But he... It's weird, he sort of trusts the fact that you experienced a cultural osmosis. Yes.

Again, subconsciously possibly, so that as you're watching Naomi Watts go through the experience that she has actually gone through in her life and knows that this is the audition that she must nail. And to watch her, I have never been so thrilled by a performance. I mean, I've enjoyed performances, I've admired performances, but I found it thrilling. Well, you're watching someone make the argument for their worthiness in real time.

And the character's doing that, and the actress playing the scene is doing that. Where they're like, I need to be undeniable in this moment. And the footnote is the movie's not getting made. The footnote, again, the punctuation on the scene is... None of that matters. So quickly, they say at the same time, of course none of that mattered, but also it mattered

because you impressed us and now we're going to something else. Then they go to the other room, and the other room is inaccessible to her for reasons, forces that are outside of her control of perception. Yeah. She looks in the eyes of this other woman and feels some sense of transference and it's like I don't get why it's her and not me. Yeah. But there's something going on here that's unknowable. And there is no reason. Correct. You know there's... It's meaningless. They don't explain to fucking Justin Theroux. They just go this is what

it has to be. That's why I think that the arm whatever I don't know the actor the... Michael J Anderson. The man from the... Michael J. Anderson. The man from another... The arm. He is great. So he... The arm. You're all right.

He is the arm. Well, he's kind of the arm here, right? There's just this image, not unlike the cowboy and the gooplin. There are just these images of chaos. There is no way that you can control what is going to happen to you in life, but specifically in this particular industry. Absolutely. You know, like there's no, and you know, I know we're kind of skipping over it, but to

bring it back to the Thoreau Cuck scene. I'm bringing this back. Don't worry. Well, the Cuck scene feels- I have much more to say about the audition. But the Cuck scene is next. The Cuck scene, yeah. Which is after the shitty day he has, he arrives home, his wife has fucked the pool man, Billy Well, the cuck scene feels... I have much more to say about the audition. Yeah. But the cuck scene is next. Yeah.

After the shitty day he has, he arrives home, his wife has fucked the pool man, Billy Ray Cyrus, and he, in a very Freudian act, despoils his wife's jewelry box with paint. Yeah. In a very Freudian? Yeah. But Graham Fuller said that in his review. I've never forgotten it. Interesting.

What is it? If you think of a jewelry box as sort of a vaginal secret metaphorical, he's like, You're dumping paint on it? He's like, I'm gonna dump paint all over it. Oh, that's so funny. Like this destructive odd sexual response to this like sexual, you know. I felt it to be just another example of his powerlessness. Sure.

And his, again, the whims of the fate and his impotence. Yes. Impotence in every single way. It's this very impotent act. He can't choose the girl. So he can't fight this man. He can't, he can't fight this man. He can't fight the mob.

He can't fight the sort of theatrics around her of like, this is your like play act and copy. To me, it's a, it's a mirror. Exactly. It's a mirror of the golf club into the windshield, the way he runs away. Another impotent act. Yeah, it's just sort of, these are objects of status. The objects of status that I'm going to destroy.

And so it feels like this, again, this kind of like odd acting out in a way that is never actually going to affect the actions that have already transpired. That's what I thought you were gonna say about Freudian. Like, I thought you meant, like, the... Yeah, that's what I thought. Objects of status that he's gonna destroy, but in both cases, he is basically causing surface damage.

Exactly. The windshield's been busted. You could drive the car. The car hasn't been destroyed. Probably shouldn't drive the car. You can get it replaced. You're Ben and you maybe have a strong take on how it could fit into a fashion line. The car hasn't been destroyed. Probably shouldn't drive the car. Yeah. You can get it replaced. You can get it replaced. You're Ben and you maybe have a strong take on how it could fit into a fashion line. But in both cases, he's affecting the most surface level of the thing in a way.

A hundred percent. I also think Billy Ray Cyrus is very funny that his mode is basically, hey man, just leave and don't forget about it. Don't worry about it. And then when he starts acting up and he he like shoves the woman, Billy Ray, goes into kind of like, all right, buddy mode, and then just finally calls him out. I just think that's funny.

I think he's so funny. It's a very funny performance from Billy Ray Cyrus. One of our finest actors. And the last thing I'll say about the impotence of it all is that then when he goes through the rest of, or not the rest of the movie, but like, for the next few scenes that he's in, he's covered in pink.

He is covered in pink. He's not covered in blood. He's not covered in- He's a cool guy, Hollywood, all black outfit is now this kind of weird comical, like paint stain thing. Like girly pink. Yes, absolutely. I don't think David Lynch selected these things,

you know, offhandedly. Like it's very important. Just fucking throwing shit at the wall. Again, I don't think he makes these, like, intentional... No, again, it's not like I've left you a clue, you better figure out the clue, there's only one answer to the clue. No, of course not.

He's sort of just, like, listening to the muse and just being like, for some reason, this is calling out to me, and I'm just gonna do it without explaining it. And that's what I felt watching it for the first time. I just felt like this guy is... He's tapped into something. He's just, and that Justin Theroux is just sort of a...

Not that he's not talented, but that he's so hobbled that to me, I was watching it and I was like, God, this guy's super hot. And then as it kept going, I was like, God, this guy's pathetic. He seems pathetic. And it's like, right, he thinks... And yet my mind remained undeterred.

As a director, you're like, I'm now in control, right? Like that's the whole point of being a director. You make one concession and it's like, did I just give up the whole fucking thing? He feels really Gen X. You're not wrong. He's not wrong. Gen X is hell. That's the reference. That's what I was trying to figure out. There's something about it that was like... That attitude. Basically, right as that is dying.

As we're on like, you know, this is the last shot of 99. It's 2001, it's over. Yay! You're on two sides of Y2K. And it's like, this is the guy who used to be tip of the spear, coolest, youngest, freshest. And this guy's about to be phased out by whatever's coming next. It's not just phased out. It's more like, hey, I get to make a big movie. I get to do what I want, right? No, you get to do what we tell you to do. Fuck you. I'm going to do what I want.

Okay, well now you have no money. Now your life is falling apart. Now you have to go to beg Cookie. God bless him. He seems like a nice guy. Big white mustache for a room for the night. In between the cucking scene and the scene the same about to talk about, we have more of Diane and Rita, Betty and Rita, Jesus Christ.

You know, they call what they think might be her phone number. Like she figures out her name. Maybe my name is Diane because she sees it on a waitress's name tag. Then. These outfits are just psychotic. Like what are these girls wearing? They just look crazy. It's literally like they went to Party City. Yeah, or Claire's

Yeah, and they just fucking except for in a bag Yeah, and they're hiding it. Yeah, they hide them which you know, they look like fake clothes in a way I can't describe any better. That's correct. They don't look like costumes. Yeah, they look like fake clothes They're not even made of? But do you know what I'm saying? They're not even made of fabric. It's beyond fast fashion, it's like rapid, instant fashion. There is a brief and comic scene in which the mob dispatches a person

I can only describe as a golem, who is like 40 feet tall and wide, to the same house, and he's just like, what's the guy's name, Adam Kesher, right? Adam Kesher and both the wife and Billy Ray Cyrus like try to charge this guy. And he just like shrugs them off. There's that shot where he like turns his hand

into a fist where he's like, I have to go fist mode to like punch one of them. No, he punches her in the face. Right, cause she's like on top of him. And that made such an impression on me the first time I watched it too. I was like... But he doesn't even acknowledge it.

He's still just going, Adam Kesscher. It's like this is what they have. They have these like robot automatons that are strong. Yeah. Yes. That's all. They wrote his name on a piece of paper and fed it into his mouth. Right.

Exactly. But when you saw it, did this really disturb you, the scene? Well it disturbed me because of how funny it was. Like the audience is laughing too, I feel like, at a lot of these scenes. I think it is truly the X factor with Lynch's career, where you're like, how can a guy make things that are this abstract and against the norms of Hollywood storytelling, that more often than not have hit to some degree and connected with the public, even if they can't quite make sense of the story.

And the answer is that he is inexplicably funny. He really is. And if people are laughing, they're a lot more willing to tolerate some shit they don't understand because they're being locked into a physiological response. I also just remember the audience at this point, we're pretty freaked out. We've already met the Winkies guy.

This is a weird, tense movie. So these scenes like the Billy Ray Cyrus scene, even the mob yelling scene, you're kind of like, this is funny, right? This is weird and funny. I'm trying to calm down. His most upsetting work is disarming you with comedy. Okay, okay, okay.

Past and future guest, Kevin Smith has talked about. Past and future. Yep, when clerks blew up at Sundance, and here's a movie that was made for no money, by non-professionals with non-professional cast, you know, with like threadbare production values and whatever, and everyone flips out over it. And he's like, the answer is like,

the thing I was able to convey in that movie was something funny. The audience was laughing. And Hollywood cannot like buy that on purpose. You have to find someone who has the instincts. And if the audience is laughing, studios are kind of like, -"I guess it works." -"That's... I was at a film festival and John Waters was interviewing Roger Corman. And he said,

what do you think... What genre would you not do, or the hardest genre? And he immediately was like comedy. It is. Because you know immediately whether it's working or not. It's less subjective. Yeah. If you're like an exec,

who's watching a screening of a fucking thing, you're like, well, either people are laughing or they're not. Yeah. I can't fight with that. Yeah. And it's fight with that. Yeah. And it's the same kind of thing where if like, if Lynch can nail five things in a movie

that are inexplicably funny, people are like, I guess there are like handles for people. Right, right, right, right. There was something too that like, when I watched this the first time that this, you're absolutely right, the scene kind of got me back in. Yeah. You're just so confused and tense.

Well, the mystery kind of... A guy getting cheated on by Billy Ray, you're like, okay. Well, it's more active than the A story. You know, the A story has now sort of morphed into... It's so elusive. And it's kind of like you've seen it before. It's like they're starting to...

The detective aspect of it is starting to hit the familiar beats. Yes. It's this pastiche. Yeah, you don't... And these scenes are actually the most energetic. I mean, again, the Mark Pellegrino scene as well, they just start to pop, they start to give you these shots of comedy. And like I said, I think it kind of...

This is the Twin Peaks back and forth, it's the dance of like, well, just the murder mystery of the girl isn't the thing. You have to go between that and a log lady or whatever. You know? So popper of it. Like, Twin Peaks is... All of it, but it's moving between these spaces. Yeah. Um, the... Yes, because the Betty and Rita is like...

Betty, you know, playing Nancy Drew and being like, well, maybe it's this, you know? And then the occasional scene of like, Lee Grant shows up at their door and is like, well, maybe it's this, you know? And then the occasional scene of like, Lee Grant shows up at their door and is like, someone is in trouble! And you're again, then as an audience member, you're back to like, oh God, like something weird's about to happen.

Lee Grant famously, like one of the most blacklisted actresses where it's like career stripped down, has 20 years where she can't fucking work. Like a young up and comer gets an Oscar nomination then is like benched and then comes back and like wins basically the revenge at Oscar and has like an incredible career Yeah becomes a filmmaker lasting decades But like someone who comes in with that sort of baked in power of like yes point out this is a she's quite old Yeah, yeah, but this is someone who represents both like the best and worst outcome exactly

Yeah. But this is someone who represents both the best and worst outcome. Exactly. They're disposing of you. Yes. Yeah. Well, that's because Coco shows up and is like, oh, don't worry about her. She's just an old kook. But like, right.

It's like, if Coco is this more put together, like, I'm an old Hollywood broad and here I am now running this little, you know... And it's the point from A to Z for her. Right. And then you have this weird ghost lady who's like, you know, like... She's sort of, again, the in-between place, like being good, but the movie gets canceled, being bad, and the movie does well.

Lee Grant represents essentially, or again, not represents, I don't want to say that, but the scene, it's also, it's a two-shot, there's no coverage, it's just, you have to experience both these women at the same time. Let's put it this way, Lee Grant, in my Grant my opinion born the greatest screen actors of all time. Agreed. I think incredible, right? Yeah made it Made it was in Hollywood was getting Oscar nominations was validated Yeah, and then there's 15 years of them basically being like that's a crazy lady. Don't pay attention to her Get out of here. We treat her like a ghost. We don't care right the 50s and 60s. You are dead

She's on the blacklist. We don't care. Right. The 50s and 60s. You are dead. She's on the blacklist. None of those credits she had before matter. Right? You are erased. I understand what you're saying. Absolutely. That's the point of her being used.

But some miracle, and she's talked about it so much, it didn't drive her insane. No. And she thankfully had this like incredible second act. Yeah. But that's how she was treated was like Coco being like, don't fucking... Don't worry about her. That's not a thing. That's not a thing. Yeah. But that's how she was treated, was like Coco being like, don't fucking. Don't worry about her. That's not a thing. That's not a thing.

That's not a thing. Yeah. After this, Justin Theroux's character goes to meet a guy called the Cowboy, up in a ranch. And you know, like, and I do feel like that's also if Lynch is like, in Hollywood, right? There's a magic road at the top of the hill that like winds like a snake. There are diners in the middle of downtown

that feel like they're from, you know, the small town. There's a fucking cowboy ranch. Like you just drive 10 miles and suddenly you're in the desert and there's a cowboy ranch. But if you go to the top of, I think it's like, not Benedict Canyon. You could say anything and I would know.

Yeah, Runyon Canyon or something like that. There is a corral up there. That's what I'm saying. Legitimately. Because it's old Hollywood. Let's go shoot the western shit. Is this a real ranch or a movie ranch? Well it was a movie ranch, but now they don't really film stuff here anymore.

So it's kind of a real ranch. Again, I think we can talk about what the... I would love to know what you guys think the cowboy sort of represents, quote-unquote, but again, when I was... My experience of watching this, and I was more rewatching it for this, that I did wonder, again, with the stilted language, the stilted performance, the strange language, the fact that he's wearing this, literally the clothes

of the first Western star in silent film, it feels the beginning of Hollywood to me. The most elemental kind of like brute force. Brute, you know, icon. And then this stilted language that feels like a silent movie star moving into the talkies. That's sort of, here's where, two, the obnoxious, impotent, Gen X, admittedly hot, you know, director. There's another part of it in my reading, which is, here's this guy, he's had like fucking actual like sort of like mafia, tough guy, criminals, weirdos, be like, this is fucking happening, you're casting her.

And Justin Theroux is still trying to fight against it impotently. He's trying to pour paint in their jewelry box. That's right. Even though he knows they control the purse strings, right? And guys like this are in this dance of like, do I stick to my guns and not get the movie made? Or is there a way I can meet them halfway and make my dune and it works, right? And those people think of themselves as fucking cowboys.

You're taking a last stand, you're not listening to the notes or you choose the one battle. I'll give them this, but if I win everything else, then it's still my movie, right? Which is basically what the cowboy is saying to him. This archetype of not just movie history, but of the kind of renegade. How do you meet in the middle between business and commerce? Or rather, business and art. Commerce and art. Right?

And what he's saying to him in a much more even keeled tone than Hedaya or anyone is, if you cast the girl, you can do anything else you want. Yeah. But, I mean, there's just, look, it's classic Lynch in that there's lots of things you can project onto it, but I also feel like Lynch is like, I feel like he's gonna meet a cowboy. I have this idea that's cowboy. And the cowboy will tell him essentially, your attitude governs your life.

Sometimes there's a buggy, you know, we'll speak in these kinds of almost like Western versions of like Eastern aphorisms. It's basically like you need to give yourself over. The Western movies are all these cowboy poets. You're absolutely right. That's what I'm talking about. The moral reason of I stroll into a town and it's like, what is the empirical right that I have to do and I have to protect? But like he's also he's this right this definition of old masculinity, like, you know,

the people pulling the levers of Hollywood fine. But it's also like, it's very easy to read this movie as, you know, she, uh, Diane, whoever is dreaming the movie, a bunch of the movie has made, has descended into maybe some sort of sex work. We see her sleeping in a bed. The cowboy comes in and says, it's time to wake up. He's sort of sex work. We see her sleeping in a bed, the cowboy comes in and says, it's time to wake up. He's sort of pimp-coated at that moment. Like, no other... There's stuff like that.

And also the blurry line between literal sex work and the sort of like exchange of sex or power. You're kind of like a little actress. You're gonna be someone's date. And after you have agency, are you choosing to do this? Or are you manipulated into a broken system that actually is deprived you of agency by even putting you in the position where that's the choice?

And that's because... And then it's followed very closely to what you guys are saying, like almost, you know, like a scene or two later is the audition. Yeah. Which I want to talk about, but the cowboy says, you'll see me once if you do good, you'll see me twice if you do bad. We see him saying, it's time to wake up. We see him once. We see him again, very briefly, in the background of the party scene, much, much later in the movie.

After Melissa George has exited, he does a wipe. He just walks by. He is completely incongruous in that scene because everyone else is dressed for a party and he is dressed like a cowboy. And that is like one of those things where you're like, this is the thing Hollywood doesn't like to think about, that they're like guys like that, right? You know, like he clashes so much

with the nice aesthetics of that party. There's that fucking cowboy in the background. It's like, yeah, well, you know, half the girls here, like. And I think in Los Angeles, you see people like that where you're like, how do you exist? What has your fucking life been for the last 40 years? You're like this all the time? Yeah. Yeah.

The cowboy is also, I will say, just, it is a very funny scene. Like, the way he's talking is funny, the whole bizarreness of Thoreau being like, the fuck, what are you talking about? The cowboy's talking to him like just with no expression, no eyebrows, it's funny. Yeah, no eyebrows, yeah. It's creepy and funny and cool,

and it's why people like David Lynch. Yeah, cause he's fun. The next scene is the rehearsal of the audition, which is so crucial to the audition. Right. Is how shitty Betty is in the rehearsal. Exactly. And that moment, the best moment where she's doing the lines,

she's sort of selling them like I would sell them or whatever, and then she goes, and then I like cry, blah, blah, blah, and I say this one last thing. Here's the other thing. And that's where her performance really comes alive. But she's also doing a shitty superficial performance, and yet you can see the difference of

she is fundamentally an actor in a way that the Laura Herring character is not. She's just reading from blank screen. And you're like, well, undeniably she has more juice than someone who has no acting ability. But yet you are not prepared for what she's about to do in the actual audition. I think that, no, you're not prepared at all. And you're absolutely right that it's crucial for us to know the scene before the scene happens. Correct.

It's definitely the setup for the payoff. How it's, quote-unquote, supposed to go. If you don't have the first part, the second part doesn't hit nearly as much. Yeah, and that's the thing that I think is so interesting is that, again, with the... You're right that there are three ladies sitting there. I don't know where the third lady ended up.

Thank you, David! When they're walking, there's only two. This is Blackbird Gate all over again. At the last part of the scene, like when everybody's leaving, I feel like one more lady comes in and you're like, who the fuck is that? The audition. So the audition, again, I think that when he puts these things in, he says, here's the

bad audition and here's the good audition. What I think is interesting is that with Lynch's work, everybody sort of leans into the positive side of the dream. And they say, or there's the negative side and then there's the positive side. There's a value judgment he's making, you're saying. And then you have to make that value judgment. So for example, we think of the Betty Rita as a dream because it is so heightened, all of these good things are happening to everybody.

So in our mind, we go, that's not reality. But why? Do you know what I mean? Like we think of this as fake, and yet in this storyline, in this quote unquote dream, that everybody is saying that this is Diane's dream, we see this scene that is so realistic. It feels so dropped.

Again, like there was no part of me that was prepared with the tone of how she was behaving and how Rita's behaving and what their storyline has been like. Yeah. That's interesting. For her to drop in the way that she does. I don't find this scene realistic.

I think her performance within the scene. Her performance is realistic. The context of the scene is as hypey, if not more hype than anything else. I would like to talk about anything how I feel about the scene Which I think is an incredibly important. I'd love to let you talk about it There's a bunch of stuff going on here one. It is this again Hollywood pastiche You've got the crusty orange face soap opera actor II kind of guy, right?

Haha, I'm gonna do this one a little close. Yeah, and let me tell you how acting work, right? Yeah, you've got a direct been around the block a few've got the nice guy producer in the sweater who's like, meet everyone, you know, right? You've got the lady sitting there quietly. And you're so unclear on the power structure of the ladies, where he's like, she's the best cast director, I wish we could get her. He doesn't reveal the ex-wife thing until later,

but you're like, what's she doing here? The power dynamics are difficult to... because really everyone's at the same level. No one is blocked in a way that we would understand. Correct. And it's so intimate. It's so intimate. The director is... The director is this hilarious parody. And the second you leave this room,

your perception of every single person changes immediately. Exactly. Exactly. Where you're watching and you're like, well, this guy's a big enough star that he reads with the actresses and he gets to make the decision. She leaves, they're like, this project's not going. You're like, so that guy guy's a big enough star that he reads with the actresses and he gets to make the decision she leaves They're like this project's not going you're like we so that guy's not a big enough star for this to actually mean anything That's right. No, he's a crusty old creep

Yeah offense to him, but he is and I think he is an old soap opera actor Lynch loves that kind of guy Also in the script she's talking about her dad. Yes. Okay, so this is For him to be the actor. The crux of everybody's theorizing about the film is this scene. I agree, yeah. It's like, why does she suddenly come alive? If the Winky scene is the thesis,

then this is the turning point of like, that these things, yeah, continually. Why is this cute, bubbly girl who shows no real sign of talent outside of being nice, suddenly the most killer fucking noir, like real actor, she's crying, the emotion is right, right? Like, why is it so good? Now, if you want to think about this scene one way, it's like we are in her dream, right?

We're in this failed actress's dream. One, she's imagining she crushed the scene, great. That's the, but two, this is about, you know, this scene comes close to her real life of like she did something terrible. She did something dark. She acted out of revenge. Like suddenly we're seeing reality bubble

into the dream, right? Of like now- But is it reality? I'm just talking. I'm not saying this? I don't, I'm just talking. I'm not saying this is a definitive reading. I'm just talking. A lot of people think this film is about, much like much David Lynch stuff, abuse.

Like very, very dark abuse that happened to Betty, Diane, whoever, Naomi Watts long ago. What do the old people represent? Like, you know, this terrifying specter of her life, you know, long ago, right? Like, who then finally charged her before she dies. The family past that she ran away from, but also was running back to. Right. Why does she suddenly, like, flip a switch when she's in this, like, creepy scenario where this dad figure is suddenly has his hands all over her? You know what I mean?

Like, what does the cowboy represent? What does the best moment of the movie in Silencio, Club Silencio, not to jump a little bit forward, when essentially the guy just, you know, makes thunder noises and she starts rattling in her seat. What does that represent if not someone surfacing, like, some kind of trauma? And the trauma can be,

oh, this is the dream of a woman who had her girlfriend killed and that's it coming out, right? Or it can be something else. And so much David Lynch, such as Twin Peaks, is about him trying to reckon with... that unspeakable darkness. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would almost argue that for me,

this is the best scene in the movie, as opposed to Silencio. I think Silencio is the best. This is amazing. No, I would... Listen... It's weird to rank scenes in Mohawk Drive. It would be strange. But I would say that this was... This was the scene that, like, that moved the film from intriguing... Right. Like, what's going on here?

...into cementing it as a masterpiece in my mind. Right. So maybe it's not the best or the most important. But whatever. This is the scene where you're right, where you're suddenly like. And what I felt was, watching it for the first time, what I felt was survival. That's what I thought watching her, was that she switched the power dynamics

and the status of everybody for survival. So it's not just- She's being thrown into the water kind of. Right, right. And that the way that she combats that is a weird mixture of acquiescence and agency. I agree. It's so weird.

This is my exact... She's playing the role they all want her to play. Yeah. The diamond in the rough. But she makes the, it's very clear that he, that with the hand going, pushing the hand further onto herself.

He's kind of saying it close. And for her to say like, yes, we're doing this, but I'm going to protect myself within... Yeah. My read is, it is a Faustian bargain. And the key part of the story of Faust is that Faust says, yes, the deal is presented to him. And he goes, I think I can make this work. Much like that, Hossley, he goes,

I can make this play out in my favor. Right. He's sort of ostensibly not being tricked. It's like, right, the deal's on the table and you know what it is. Here's a guy setting up fake rules for a game, right? He's saying, well, we're doing that classic thing where we play it real close.

You're a fucking creep and you want to touch my body. You're disgusting. Right? You're giving them the look like, hey, I'm going to do the same thing with her I did with that other woman earlier. You're like, okay, so when he thinks they're attractive, he plays the scene a different way.

Especially as we now know this is kind of a fake audition in a weird way. Right. Yeah. Then he's turning to her and saying, like, you know, because acting is reacting. I need to be getting something to react off of. Right. And he's turning into this bullshit lesson to justify why he's acting like a creep. Right.

But she actually takes that lesson. She actually reacts. That's the point where she goes, fuck, if he's going to do something that is not allowed, then what can I get off of this, what he's doing that unlocks a different part of the performance, whether it's unlocking something because it is tied to a memory of an experience she's had or it's an idea or whatever. Exactly, or this is just how Hollywood is. She's onion.

She thinks, well, if you do this, and especially if I can use this and turn it into art, make it into something aesthetic, I'm in control again. And as someone that has been very deeply abused in this industry, your instinct is to somehow, you have to survive it. Turn lead into gold or whatever. In the moment you have to survive it,

and you just go into gold or whatever. In the moment you have to survive it, and you just go into fight or flight. But I think what this scene is exemplifying is, like I was saying, it's somehow you have to transcend what's happening to you. Because once the person- It's almost like, because that's abuse, right? Is that you just leave your body,

and you just go into a particular survival mode. And what's so awesome about this scene is that her version of that switches the status of everybody in the room. Yeah, here's another thing. As the last, like, eight years, there's finally been a more open discourse about, like, this sort of abuse of power in Hollywood,

and when there's literal abuse or when even just the abuse is people putting in this type of situation, this kind of test. To offer this as a test is abuse. It is a test. It is absolutely a test. It's a test. It's how bad do you want it? Which is the fucking shorthand people use when they play scenes like this out, right?

Yeah. It is this test of if you withstand this in this moment, not, you have to do it right now. How are you going to survive this? Then, if Hollywood runs on fear, they are, in that moment, you are asked to produce the fuel of this fucking city and this industry. And the thing I find interesting in a way that's emotionally overwhelming, but the last eight years where suddenly it's like the black box has been opened and there's a landscape in which people can share stories as survivors. And it's not just the most top extreme like monster monster monster shit

It's the right it's the low level in one person right who suddenly now like a ton of victims come out of the woodwork or whatever It is let's let's use like Kevin Spacey as an example, right? You have stories where it's like he did this to this extreme physical boundaries were crossed in this and yeah And they're also stories where it's like, Anthony Rapp, right? Where he's like, he crawled on top of me and I pushed him off. And some people would go, well, so he didn't rape you, what's the problem? And you're like, the moment he creates the test

of I'm trying this and seeing how you respond, your reality has forever been broken. Something has changed in that room. The second the guy says nice and close, it's like, well, fuck. Do you walk out of the room? Do you play it? It's even below, right, forget space here. It's right, it's more just what you're talking about, just the general context of a casting scene.

It's before the scene starts. Right, of just where no one would ever, you know, call the police over, like, there was an awful vibe to this casting scene. The shocking thing that I experienced, again, being very intensely abused, is in this industry, is it comes out of nowhere. It's even if you know the person is abusive, you're still surprised that it's directed at you.

And you're shocked that they actually did it within that context. Going back to what you were saying about Winkies, and just the understanding that, you know, unhoused person... We just agree that she doesn't open the door and come in here. That's her space and this is our space. There is a bizarre thing that happens when you are shoved, or screamed at at or threatened, that you are in a room full of people like this.

Full of people, usually men. Usually, you know, older men, and you are on... You are... There is no one helping you. No one steps in and says, stop doing that to her. And also, sometimes it's three women sitting on a couch watching it happen. Exactly. And you're looking at them and you go...

And almost checked out. Like just like... And the feeling is, well, they're not acting like this is weird. Well, am I weird for thinking something's weird? Exactly. And there's no reaction shot. That's the other thing. And I think that's how he expresses probably what he has experienced is that the abuse happens and then there's no reaction.

And so the audience is going, I'm expecting a reaction. And it's like, no, it's only your reaction viewer. You're the only person who's going to react to what is happening to her. You might just watch this movie and not think about it. That's the scene where she crushes the audition. And then you see it a second time and you're like, oh, it's funny how they're arranged.

Like, the people in the room. And then you watch it again, you're like, oh, I see how the old guy is not acting. Is trying something. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, whatever. It's kind of the... There's more performance in the setup of the audition than there is in the performance that happens within the audition

There's a lot of everyone playing their yeah Being benevolent and yeah performative kind of yeah And then it's like what we're saying of where the fuck did this come from? What did she just drop into it's like it's the veil has dropped and now she's actually in the context of i'm faking it Achieving a greater reality. That is what's crazy. It's like, oh my god, it's so triggering because you're right. It's like you come into the situation

and everybody is so like cordial. Yes. You know, everybody is behaving the way that we have all agreed that people behave. And what's so shocking, and again, my experience, it's this particular industry, is that there is this performative aspect of, this is a safe, not even safe space,

this is just a normal space. This is just a normal, you know, work. This is just how it is. This is just how it is, we're all working, you know, and then all of the sudden this violence happens, and you cannot, you cannot process it. Yes. Or what you're forced to do in that moment as a victim

is you have to process it as something that is, again, what I think Lynch does so well in this movie, you have to process it as something that is probably one of the worst things that has ever happened to you in this horrible, horrific moment. And yet you're also feeling this oppressive normality coming at you. You know, there's no...

How do you force yourself to cry in a controlled environment? Exactly. It is unnatural to be able to make yourself cry when you're not actually being punished or suffering. Yeah, if you cannot, you just sort of fall into this... That's why the scene feels, like you said, the first time you watch it, you're like, what a fucking brilliant actress. Like, I don't even know what's unfolding in front of me.

You're thinking about Naomi Watts. You are, honestly. And it's only later, I mean, you have that kind of moment when he touches her. Sure. But again, I do feel like a lot of the people at the time were like, ah, old Hollywood handsy guys. Yeah, he knows over it. Yeah.

And watching it exactly like in the time that we're in now. In the time this movie comes out, even though it was a culture where people were not allowed to share their stories of their experience in this kind of way, it was so well known that movies like fucking Toy Story 2 can make a joke about Stinky Pete. Like having a private audition with the Barbies. Yes. And you were like, this is 2 can make a joke about Stinky Pete like having a private audition with the Barbies. Yes. And you were like, this is shorthand in a kid's movie.

Everyone knows. But I mean, it's just the most wonderful Griffin thing in the world that you're like, I mean, we all knew Stinky Pete was right there. He's right there. He's telling you it's normal that he's staying in the box and it's not. And it's yeah, it's not. That's not. And it's, yeah. It's not. That's not normal.

No, I think, you know, acting is a great expression of this idea because it's an art form that is just about manipulating your own emotions in your body and brain. That's correct. Yeah. Right? But I think most artists who are able to work in grand emotion in any way, make things that make people feel and represent great feeling. Not to make a blanket statement, but very often that either comes out of some trauma

they experience in their life up until that point that put them in touch with something dark and deep, right? Or you are born with like an innate painful sense of sensitivity. Even if your experiences in your life as Lynch sort of describes his childhood of like my childhood was actually the white picket fence. Right. It wasn't. I say to you, these things actually represent work to me.

I was not living in the darkness underneath the grass. But clearly as a guy who was born with like this innate, my skin is ripped off, my nerves are exposed, I'm noticing everything, I'm feeling everything. And that allows me to then bring those feelings back up to the surface again. Finance podcasters love saying things like, if you don't cook every single meal at home, well, good luck retiring. At Wealthsimple, we know that's not true. Building wealth takes time. You deserve to live a little while you wait. That's why we're introducing new rewards,

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Yeah. They have this, they exchanged this look again, feels sort of like a TV pilot thing of like, next week on Mulholland Drive, we'll see whatever that is. But in a fixed object, it becomes, this is the one moment. It's this moment where it could have happened, and then now we're moving on. Yeah. She goes back, and then the mystery resumes

where she and Rita then, like, go to this house, and they sort of find their way in, there's this sort of scorned other woman. They think it might be her. Correct. This might be her house. Instead, they find a rotting corpse in the bed. And I just have to... The TV pilot, to be clear, ends here.

Wow. Oh, got it, got it, got it. I just have to clock that Rita is wearing the craziest thing I've ever seen. It just, she's like Morticia or something with those sleeves. It's just wild. And then right after that, of course, they make her seem even more normal

by putting her in a crazy blonde wig. Yes. Um, to basically being like, we're afraid for your life. And then the scene after that, it is so funny to imagine the phone call of like, Lynch is like, I started writing. The next scene is you fucking a bed. That's, yeah. I mean, it's right to it. You know, it's like,

that's the next thing. This movie's now rated R. I was not out when I saw this scene. And I have to say, like, again, it was just so... It was just... I just... I don't know what to say. I do believe that when you're a queer person, there's sort of a moment where you get unlocked.

Sure, something helps you refocus. Something sort of happens, like my wife says, like when she saw Ellen, you know, come out, you know, like come out or at some point watching Ellen, she was like, oh, that's what I am. This is why representation matters. A blue key, in a way. It is, I hate to sound like a horny little fuck.

It's so true, though, because you, oh, this mirrors something, this speaks to something in me. Here's a blue key, I'm opening a new door. I'm opening a new door, and it's so, it is so, I hate the phrase representation matters, but it does. It sounds corny, but sometimes it does. The second I saw this,

and it's why everyone who complains about it needs to shut the fuck up forever. They just need to shut the fuck up. They just, also the sex scene is so, meaning like they feel like they have already been lovers. That's why it's such an interesting sex. Because it's like, they get it. I remember my audience laughing very clearly when,

it's like, Rita gets in bed naked. There's this kind of oh no, yeah, chumminess that then they have this kind of kiss. And Betty asks, have you ever done this before? And Rita's like, I don't know. And I remember my audience laughing. That is, but it's funny. Yeah, she doesn't forget that. I mean, she doesn't know. And I remember my audience laughing. That is, but it's funny. Yeah, she doesn't work it out.

I mean, she doesn't know. I mean, again, it's like the girl getting punched by the golem. Like there's just this sort of pop of like, you know, a pun. Right, yeah, that's objectively a funny little thing for her to say at this moment. But then, right, they have this moment where it's like it feels like they've been doing this forever,

but also they don't even know each other. One of them doesn't even know who she is. Yeah. It's like very intimate, but it's also it feels like they've been doing this forever, but also they don't even know each other. One of them doesn't even know who she is. It's like very intimate, but it's also very fumbling. Betty is coded very heterosexual. Of course, I want to with you, she keeps saying, like, it's kind of like, you know. This happens to me anytime I have sex. The person then falls asleep and then wakes up and starts saying, no, I bonda, silencio, silencio.

Yeah, no, I bonda. Yeah, yeah. I'm there smoking my cigarette and they're like, no I-Bonda, Silencio, Silencio. Yeah, yeah, no I-Bonda. Yeah, yeah, very normal. I'm there smoking my cigarette and they're like, no I-Bonda, and I'm like, here we go. Okay. Gotta go to club, Silencio. The old ball and chain going off again. What I like about her doing that, or I would say, again, my experience of watching her doing that

and then going into Silencio is this sort of, and her, you know, and then Betty shaking is that there's this sort of breakdown. Obviously, whatever we're in is coming apart. You've acted upon a feeling that alters your reality. And Club Silencio is very different from like the Lodge in Twin Peaks, but still, there is a big red velvet curtain.

And it is a place where someone comes out and is basically saying, this is a dream! Not to say that Leslie's reading on the film this year. I have a reading on this, keep going, keep going. But obviously, beyond the fact that it's about maybe someone saying like you are in a dream, it's also about Hollywood, right?

Like, you know, this is all a tape recording. This is stage. The place where dreams are made, the dream factory. Exactly. Again, this is why it feels like it's about a dream instead of it's not, it is a dream because he he's saying, there's no, there's no ban. There's no, none of this is real. None of this is real.

None of this is real. And then of course, it's very real to them. And even as a viewer, I remember seeing it for the first time and going, when she falls, I actually had forgotten. And I think that was the point. I think when the guy from the motel comes out and he does something, he says something or does something.

Cookie. He comes out next after the magician. And you do think, in some way your brain just goes, this is a different scene. And I don't know why. I don't know if it's because you recognize the actor or you recognize it. So suddenly there's this weird, like, I don't know if it's the, and then maybe it's the, he uses that blinking lights or electricity a lot to like signal some sort of transition. So I think that the, it's the blue light on the microphone. Is that what happens after the no a Bondo?

So he had no a Bonda, you know, the guy comes out with the muted trumpet, which I love where he's again, probably just, do you love this fun? do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do Which is like honestly a part of LA that very rarely anything takes place in because it's so... Well, G. Lee... Does it? Am I wrong? You're right that G. Lee is set in downtown Los Angeles. And I'm glad that you brought it up on a high level. And that was part of Martin Bress' argument for why you wanted to make that film.

He was like, no, I never talked about this. We're going to keep moving. And he had a lot of interesting stuff to say about it. The guy who plays the magician is Richard Green. The guy's called the magician in the script, which is sort of interesting to think about. And he says that Lynch would not let him read the script, but built a full body cast of him that he was going to set on fire as part of this scene. And they decided that would look stupid and they didn't do it.

And said he does the thing with the thunder and lightning, right? Or Betty starts shaking and then he vanishes above of smoke. Oh, right. He does. He sure does. And then we have the blue light and then out comes Cookie and is like, please welcome Rebecca Del Rio. And she comes out and she sings Roy Orbison's Crying in Spanish. And it's the most perfect scene in history. If I'm remembering correctly, the blue haired lady is the script supervisor or the...

Oh, like who plays the... in the movie she represents the script supervisor Yeah, yes, but she's she's the script girl. No, it's it's something I think you're right. It was somebody on the guy and I thought that about the muted trumpet guy as well I think you're right. You just you get these are like I agree that it's silly It's like you get this sense that he's just grabbing people. Well, it's not not the thing Yeah, it's one of the things that helps maintain such an odd reality in all of his work is he like puts actors at wildly different levels together. Yeah.

Right? Where you're like, you have people who are naturalistic and people who are heightened, and people who are from an old school, you know? Like Coco, where you're just like, oh wow, right, this is someone who hasn't acted since the 50s. This is a different type of movie acting. And here's someone who doesn't think of themselves as an actor at all. And it's an energy and a look that he recognizes. And these people are all interfacing with each other. Yes, yes, yes, yes. The magic of the song where she's singing, it's like for one, the dreamy thing or like

the things are being refracted, right? Like an old 50s, 60s, whenever crying is from my favorite Roy Orbison song, song that's being like sung in another language by a different person, right? And it's so intensely emotional. But maybe you don't know what she's saying, right? If you don't know Spanish and she's so in it, but then she faints dead away and the music keeps going. So like the artifice is completely laid bare for you of it, but it's nonetheless so powerful. But also like familiar things being made unfamiliar.

Right? It is everything. I know this song, but why are they... Why is she singing in Spanish? This movie isn't in Spanish. And then kind of the creepiest thing to me, like creepiest unspoken thing is that they go back home and Betty just disappears. And then it's just Rita in the apartment by herself.

And then she's like, I guess I'll open the blue box. But like Betty's just gone and no one says anything. They get the, well, Betty takes out the, at Salencio, Betty takes out the cube. And suddenly the cube has materialized. Suddenly the cube has materialized. And her manicure is terrible. I just want to also say that.

Not unlike all of their costumes, like it's just bad. Yeah, fake nails. And then we are in the other part of the movie, time to wake up. Where should we start with this? I want to start with Watts's 180. Okay. You lead us here.

The most powerful trick of the new world is how different she is in look and attitude. But also the movie looks different. It does. Yeah, her apartment looks weird and creepy. But beyond that, you have to think about in the pilot, the footage that was shot for the pilot, you are still was shot for the pilot, you are still trying to conform to television standards, which is this pilot, despite being shot on film

by Peter Deming, by a filmmaker, was going to be aired on standard definition for by three television most likely. I was wondering about that. You have to light things pretty brightly because people's TVs aren't well calibrated. It's true. And now it's like-

I wonder how much, right, because they talk about how they sort of tried to adjust it. things pretty brightly because people's TVs aren't well calibrated. It's true. Yeah. And now it's like... I wonder how much right, because they talk about how they sort of tried to adjust it. That's the thing, because you're unlocking now at this point in the movie him designing images that he knows will be projected on a bigger screen. People are going to actually be able to engage with this imagery in a very different physical form. Yeah.

And so suddenly it's like the texture of the film stock, the color palette of the movie, the angles, all these things become totally different while her performance is in entirely different register. You're absolutely right. This is why I think, and again, I would never disagree with somebody saying that the first two thirds are a dream

and then the last third is. I present that more as the sort of basic reading. Not consensus even, just kind of like, that is a basic reading one can have a mohawk. But there are two, listen, there are two things I'm gonna do, I'm gonna offer up a reason why I don't think it is and a reason why I absolutely would agree that someone't think it is, and a reason why I absolutely would agree that someone

would think it is. The first one is that the reason I kind of get hung up on the whole first part is a dream is all of the changes of POV. And I'm not saying that you don't dream. Right. Why are we suddenly with this person? Why are we here and we're suddenly with somebody else? It doesn't feel like, only because not that you can't be in different storylines in a

dream, but they're so tonally... We're being dropped into the middle of things. It's odd. Yeah. Things like the Hitman and the Linkies. It doesn't feel like Betty's, you know, anyway. So that's one thing that kind of trips me up about it. What I will say that, why I think people immediately go to the place of, this is reality or this is who Diane actually is,

is Watts' performance. Is that she, but I mean, it is very, but again, it's very over the top, the way she behaves when she sees Camilla, that weird like, you know, and then smiling and like, you know, this like, he came back, like it's this horrifically pathetic, mirroring Adam Kesher like, you know, this like, he came back. Like, it's this horrifically pathetic, mirroring Adam Kesher, like, just...

And having been that... She's pathetic in every way. Like, she's pathetic there. So she sees... Not to be rude, but... No, but she does it at Camilla. She does it at Camilla. She suddenly has this... Then she retracts,

and she kind of does it. And then we cut to her looking at herself. Yeah, that is such a cool fake out. As you move on, yeah, so as you move on for the rest of the story, there is this feeling of unlike Kesher, there's this feeling that she has the self-awareness of her pathetic. Yeah. The fact that she's pathetic. Yeah. Because also...

Which is, I mean, all the stuff we're talking about, about the decisions you make in the industry to what you will accept to get ahead and whatever. It's like, but then you cross a line and you're on the other side of reality, which is just like, this is just who I am. I've made this bed for myself. And when I watched, again, when I watched this

in the theater, this in the masturbation scene, and I really don't mean to get too dark here, but when I watched her seeing Camilla and standing in that kitchen with that shitty coffee maker, and then the masturbation scene, I was like, this is me. Like I just, I related with it so, and again, I was just like, how has he, so I get awakened by the- How does he know? Yeah, exactly. That's what it is. I was like, the lesbian scene awoke something in me.

Again, it was so dream... Not dream, like, but... You know, dream fulfillment-y that they were like... Beautiful, they already know each other. And then you get dropped into this, like, horrifically lonely, desperate, pathetic place that... I jerk off to Pebbles all the time in my jorts, just FYI. So I don't want that. I have two pebbles here on my desk.

I pull them on my shoe sole if you want them for later. Not to get too horny on main. The thing that blew my mind too in seeing this, and I constantly use this as a reference too is that I just think it is the most... I know that it's very dark and the tone around it is very dark and the character is very dark and it is in a very dark place. But the actual masturbation is so realistic to female masturbation. Like usually when you saw it,

it made us up to- Hard sweaty work. Exactly, like when you- I'm not joking. No, you would see very intense male masturbation in films. Like you would see the sort of emptiness afterwards. Whereas with women, it's like this sort of... They're like, oh... It goes in the secret place.

They're humping pillows. And it's still beautiful. Joan Allen makes a tree catch on fire. Well, hey, wait a second. It was pretty intense of her. Like, pleasant. But that's her in a bath and she goes... And then, like, color. And then suddenly, like, she's in a bath and she goes, ah! And then like color. And then suddenly like she's in color.

It just, to watch this, and again, I don't paint it every time, it's like pebbles and like. She could just be looking at something that's not just fucking cobble soaps on the wall. In and out of focus. Well, I felt like she's imagining. She's remembering the sex they had, yes. She's trying to do that and she cannot conjure it up.

That's why, again, about a dream, she's trying to recall and hold on to that dream. Place herself back in... Yeah, somehow I need to be back. And it keeps losing it. And then it's like, nope, shitty life. Because the scenes are, it's like, shitty life. It's her making coffee and seeing,

she thinks Camilla, it's just herself. And then it's her on set remembering, we assume, Adam, like, kissing Camilla, being like, this is how we're gonna do this scene, right? Where she's, like, dressed in this really dowdy costume as some, like, shitty tiny character, like, watching, you know, sort of with envy. It's also this...

And then the sex scene that she's remembering and the masturbation. Yes, yeah. I mean, the loneliness, the intense... She's pathetic in all these scenes in different ways. And the intense fantasy, like to have those things. Again, it's like, I just feel like he's trying to, he's trying to capture some sort of like, all of this stuff is happening at the same time.

Your future, your past, what you want in life, what's actually happening. The dangerousness at daytime, the dream of having a comfortable home, understanding that somebody can love you and also not wanna be with you. Like, again, I do get why when you drop into it, it does feel like reality, but I think it's because we,

again, that first shot of Blue Velvet, I think just cemented him into this idea that the dream is good. Everything that is good is the dream, and everything that is bad is reality. And that the dream is a lie. And that the dream is a lie. Right.

And the ear is the truth. But like the dream is not good, exactly. The dream is weird. That's the point. That's what I'm saying. It's weird and jarring. Listening to him or reading his interviews about, you know, a lot of stuff, it just feels like he's trying to, or not even trying, he's accomplishing.

I think that's why people are always saying it's a dreamlike state because that's the only time we are actually aware that that's happening. I think right now I'm here, I'm having a podcast, I'm I'm having a podcast, having a podcast, I'm obsessed with being here. I love this movie. You've been here for so long. I've been here for so long. I'm obsessed. Like this is so, but there's this, you know, as I'm sitting here, there's all kinds of things going through my mind. Yeah. Right. There's things I have to do. There's things that I did do. There's like, they're just, they just, I'm in watching images that he has put together.

I am remembering being 26 years old, living in Hollywood and feeling absolutely desperate and that I was never gonna make it and I was never gonna get paid and I was never gonna get into the union, you know, like. And you're trying to get it out in your head. If I were to make it, what do I need to do? What am I fucking up right now?

And the only thing- What am I willing to give up in order to get to the other side? Exactly, and what I relate with so much in this section is the only way you can survive that level of depression, borderline personality disorder, whatever you wanna call it. In my experience as a person with mental health,

you know, issues and having come out, addiction issues and having come out the other side, when you're in it though, you have to hang on to the dream. And usually the dream is other person centric, because that's much more tangible than like the dream of becoming famous, the dream of being Stanley Kubrick,

the dream that's never gonna happen because that's not what Hollywood is anymore. But I think with aspiring for success, fame, whatever it is, notoriety... Yes. The other person-centric can be, and this is back to the core of what this movie is, a Christian Stewart. A version of yourself. It can be a version of a different person. Yes.

It doesn't have to be, I'm so in love with this person and I'm building my entire dream around the idea of our relationship. It could be your relationship to the version of me that has made it on the other side. And if you're super, Kristen Stewart, Mark Ruffalo, these are- So good we brought this up. And David was scoffing right now. People are throwing awards at us. Ioffing with. I want to speak. We did it.

I wish to speak. But they, but, but one thing that I noticed was I would have sexual partners at that time and at that very, very dark time in my life. And my experience was you have, you do enter this weird liminal space where what's elusive is the approval of an entire industry, right? What's elusive is, you know, Bob Booker didn't like me in the audition. You know, like what's elusive is I don't understand why this person is making it and I'm not making it.

I don't get why, you know, I'm getting the chance to make the movie, but I have to have it be this girl. And therefore, the monomania of if I got the approval from this one person. Do you know what I mean? Like then it would be a tangible... That's why I think it's about a dream. That's the dream. If I could just blink, I'd be happy.

I'd be happy. I'm not even saying I need all of it. If I could fuck this person again, even if I'm begging, even if I'm begging for this person to fuck me again. Yes. The other fantasy that she is indulging in both sides of the story, but in the dark side, is what if I fucking killed that person who is responsible for all my misery, right? In fact, it's Camilla.

She took my parts. She screwed me over romantically. She's the reason I'm not what I wanted to be, blah, blah, blah. Because the idea of hiring Mark Pellegrino as your hitman, one, Mark Pellegrino's too hot to be your hitman. Two, we've watched it. This guy turns into a fucking Keystone Cops routine as he's bungling the job.

We've all seen Netflix as hitman. There's no such thing as hitman. But you know, right? The fantasy of like, yeah, I hired someone to kill her. That's a fantasy too, even if it's back after the movie is the real Diane or however you want to think about it. Like, it's another Hollywood story. But also at that point, you're basically creating a loop, which is like, why is she being driven

in a car to get killed at the beginning? That's the thing. Because the greatest wish is that you had never met her in the first place, that you stop the first meeting from happening in a certain way. You can kill her, but what does that solve because you have the experience? But it's also like, right, the imagination maybe of like, ah, but what if I hadn't killed her? Or what if she hadn't died?

And she'd escaped. And we'd found each other again in the city of dreams, Hollywood. And we'd figured this out. It would go great. It would go great. I would go great, do great go great. I would go great at that audition, which would be normal and not like actually on selling if you think about it. And it would be great. And we would solve the mystery. What's in the mystery? It's me in the

bed dead of like a drug overdose. I can't escape. You know, like it's like, that's the Lynch thing of like, I've made it to the end of my dream. I've made it to the end of my dream. Oh God, I'm back where I died, essentially. Because the end of this dream. I've made it to the end of my dream. Oh, God, I'm back where I died, essentially. Because the end of this movie, you know, it's like the scenes we talked about, and then the party, its own kind of Hollywood nightmare of like, you're dolled up, you look good. No one at this party wants to fucking talk to you.

Everyone's doing better than you, right? Which I think is the absolute core base reality of what drives most people insane pursuing a life in show business is it's actually never enough. One thing that I think that this last part of the movie is hitting so many specific pieces of pain, you know, that occurred in the first two-thirds of the mint bay. You know, like they popped, they happened, the impotence,

the abuse at the audition, like the winkies, you know, there's just, there's all these kind of violent moments. But there is this, when I saw the movie, again, later in my 20s, when I was in Los Angeles, there was this like, what I identified having experienced it then was there is a really specific, almost exquisite type of pain being in such close proximity to it.

These people who are making it, they're making the movies, they're so famous, they're so successful. And I'm here for some reason, I feel displaced. I don't have my- I'm in a dress, I even look good, but it doesn't matter. Again, I don't have my, like with Rita, I don't have my dress. I even look good. I don't think I don't have my like with Rita I don't have my memory. I'm making up my personality as we go along my North star is this person I have I'm maniacally obsessed with yeah, you know, there's no there's no

There's no way to anchor yourself the in those situations year of me trying to audition and not getting callbacks I was less miserable than when I had transcended to the point where I was testing for stuff but not getting the part. Right. And everyone else was like, well, you're doing well, you're getting further along. Progress is being made. And I'm like, no, the fact that I'm closer makes it harder.

Speak, Finn. Isn't it the dinner party where the accident takes place? Well, like, you mean like... Like where she gets dropped off is kind of where we start. Yeah. Yeah. After the horrible dinner party, it's just her at Winkies with Mark Pellegrino and him saying, like, when I do it, you're gonna get this blue key.

And then we just go to the back of the diner, the hobo is there, which is in the pilot. That is in the pilot. Just a shot of the hobo sitting behind the diner. So clearly it was this idea that Lynch had. He was like, I'll get to an episode 20 and instead had to add the earlier thing to set it up. Exactly.

And, but then this is not in the pilot, which is then the hobo puts down the blue box and little goblin old people run out of it. Excuse me. You said that incorrectly. Gooblin. Gooblin. People run out of it going, and then they charge her. Like they're the fucking borrowers.

They're borrowers, but then they're full size. And then she shoots herself and she's dead and the most... But for whatever reason, when I saw it, and again, I'm just trying to like, you know, conjure that feeling, the old people were so fucking scary. They're scary. I mean, it was like, I mean, the top scariest things in this movie are like, Gublin and the small old people.

Yeah. And I don't know why. I mean, I don't even know if they represent anything. It was just so, so horrible. And part of it is, I can't make sense of this. Yeah, it's terrifying how unknown it is. It's deranged. It's really deranged to see old people act this way and smile and look like they could hurt you. I think it's why it speaks to so old people act this way and smile and look like they could hurt you.

I think it's why it speaks to so many people who watch the movie as like, right, the original horrible thing, whatever it is, right? It's something like this, it's something so unspeakable that they represent. That's what it is. It's not just like guilt of like, oh, my fucking shitty life in Hollywood. It's like, no, this is all the way down. This is some sort of, yeah, this is actually, the word that's coming to guilt of like, oh, my fucking shitty life in Hollywood. It's like, no, this is all the way down. This is some sort of, yeah, this is actually, the word that's coming to mind is like demonic.

Like this is demonic. This is like, it's all, it's, I did want to come back to the, I know that we were like, Mark Pellegrino's too hot to be a hit man. And then, and then he leaves the key. And I guess my, if there were one part of the movie I don't buy,

it's that part. And I wanted to ask you guys, like, why do I feel that way? That's what I was sort of saying about, like, it feels dreamlike. It's too clean. A hitman, a blue key, like... Right, does it feel a little obvious that it's like... There, the blue key is kind of looped up for you. They're about to, like, yeah, it's like... Is it too neat?

Because it's one of Lynch's clues, who gives a key and why. That's right. It's like, I feel like he sat down for 10 minutes, he was like, uh, lampshade, key, other way. Silvio North story. I think also it's, it just feels so, there's this abruptness to it that seems almost like it's trying to shift gears into like, you know, like I'll run up to the end of the movie in the suicide.

He's like literally shifting gears on the notion of how the story was going to be told. Yes. And Camilla and Kesher are about to announce something. And I think it's really interesting that they don't. It's like, it's going to be there getting married. One assumes. One assumes. Although this time I was watching it, interesting that they don't it's like it's gonna be they're getting married one assumes although this time I was watching it I thought they were pregnant yeah yeah yeah I also love when she kisses the girl yeah do we want to talk about that or we don't care I mean

an iconic image like I feel like that was a still image that was used all the time it was what's the dynamics though that's what I can't I agree but I think it's all about the transference of her making contact with Melissa Leo on the set of the audition. Melissa George. If it was Melissa Leo, that would rock. God, that would be cool. And Melissa Leo was the girl. Let's consider. Yeah, what if, wait a minute.

Let's consider Melissa Leo. Kesha's like, this is crazy. I love Melissa Leo too, but the woman's a character actress. She doesn't read for Sylvia North. But do you guys agree that, wait a minute, hold on though. Do we agree that Melissa Leo did have a moment? Wasn't there a time where she was the girl and she was pushed, pushed, pushed? Yeah, before second act is character actress. I'm sorry, we have to move on.

We're moving on. It's that moment where she locks eye contact. It's like, what is the trade off here? I could be her with the part right but then does she end up with the person I want to be with yes Yeah, whether that's literal or the idea. It's like what's the give-and-take of every decision every opportunity? I agree with Ben It's like I don't know what the dynamics are yeah, but that again what I felt was the was the transference Yes, I don't know if it was the transference of... It just felt like there was some sort of movement from... That she's being left behind in so many different ways.

But that cemented it. It's not literally her being part of a throuple that New York Magazine will write a profile on. Yeah. And then we see the cowboy. Yeah, we just see the cowboy. But it is also, I just feel like he so is nailing this scene of like, right, I'm here, nobody wants me here.

Yeah, she's so good. Like the way Coco talks to her. This is the room you wanted to be in and it sucks. Right, and it's like this is the worst. And nobody wants you here. And like, there's this, I love that she's late. Like that... Yeah, I like that too.

I think it shows a lot of like integrity. Yeah, she was just like, I'm gonna fucking... David is clear! I was looking for somebody to throw at you. Throwing darts at me? I was looking for somebody to throw at you. He's loading a gun? I want to say that after the suicide,

and the smoke rising from the bed, which is such an amazing piece of imagery. Oh, I agree. Like, what a bizarre kind of theatrical moment. Exhaust, right. Yeah. You have this image that makes me. By the way, it reminds me of Celentio.

Yeah, right, we're entering Celentio. Yes, yeah, yeah. In the like the last shot will be the blue lady, the hair lady, Marge I call her. As you should. But this image that kind of makes me well up, which is this like bleached out, a slow motion shot of them in their wigs,

smiling in the car, right? Like this kind of, but it's like, it's their dream. And now it's like so whatever, like lost or big. It's like been dreamed over a million times or abstracted or whatever. And it's sort of like fading away. And it just speaks to everything he's thinking about about Hollywood and like how we feel about ourselves.

And also about what it feels like when you lose your keys, that's why. And then she just never gets her keys back and it's the worst part of the movie. And doesn't that really grind your gears? And then the blue haired lady says, Silencia, which is Spanish for silence. And what she's telling everyone is right

huge Ellen Burstyn energy and then right and then the credits start rolling and the Audience all stands up and goes well. We understood that Clean or you go and take ecstasy Yes, you haven't taken it yet interesting Five guys, but yes, so you hadn't taken it yet. I don't think so. This is what's interesting Yeah, the experience you're describing is its own weird Mulholland Drive loop of did you take it before and watch the movie on it? I don't know. Do you take it afterwards as a response? No, you take it to before a movie then you're just to your like seatmate. You're gonna be like hey I don't know, can you be the Sasa?

The dreamer, maybe the last act is the dream. Listen Spring Breakers really fucking hit. Yeah it does When I was impaired. Let's play the box-off game. Let's see what point she was about to make. Yes, please. No, no, no. You were about to say something. No, I was just going to say that I couldn't remember.

I just, I think- That feels appropriate. I mean, I guess maybe I would just, the only thing I might still say is like to wrap up this incredible conversation is like, I just, I was fundamentally changed by this movie. It instantly entered my top ten. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days, weeks. I again it was my first David Lynch movie and I feel like it actually bizarrely is a good entry point if anyone listening to this certainly knows. I think that absolutely. Yes. It's sort of the question I asked on Blue Velvet, it's like, right, that and Mulholland Drive,

those are the two kind of like David Lynch-er movies, like Take Your Pick. Right. 15 years apart, those were two entry points. Agreed, yeah. Or Twin Peaks. But that's... Yeah. And I think Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks are paired, and this and Twin Peaks The Return

are paired of like the eras. I love The Return. It's pretty good. What a fucking Return are paired. Oh. Of like, the eras. I love The Return. It's pretty good. What a fucking... You haven't gotten to it yet, right? No. Well, I love the fact that The Return is a...

This is like, this is why I love David Lynch. The Return is an un-recapable show. It sure is. In a world where people... It was very funny to watch the TV recap economy try and... Completely break down. Completely break down....f fail to deal with the return. Completely break down.

We can do like kind of the Westworld theories thing with this thing and then immediately being like, oh, maybe, maybe we can't. And God, they're going to be so sour when we do four podcast episodes on it and recap it perfectly. I can't wait. Don't worry. Don't worry. We're going to recap it so perfectly.

I can't wait. But I do feel like we live in this like consuming, you know, content moment era... It takes economy. Where they... Where you basically can just read the recaps instead of watching the episodes. But not Twin Peaks The Return. But not... But the thing with Twin Peaks The Return is it is like the back half of Mulholland Drive

to Twin Peaks, right? Where it's like David Lynch is like, oh, you want me to do more? And people are like, yeah, can it be kind of the same? And he's like, no. Absolutely not. But I have plenty of ideas. And the same people will be in it. So will that make you happy? We are so excited to say that this week's Box Office Game is brought to you by our friends at

Regal with the Regal Unlimited program. It's an all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. See any standard 2D movie anytime with no blackout dates or restrictions. Here's what you should do. Follow the link in the show notes or go to the Regal app, click the unlimited banner, and then follow the instructions to sign up and enter promo code blank check when prompted to receive your 10% discount on your first three months. So Box Office Game, this opens number one, $112 million opening weekend.

October 12th, 2001, this is opening limited on 66 screens, number 14 of the Box Office. Number one of the Box Office is an Oscar winner from this year, Griffin. It's number one for the second week in a row. It won a major Oscar? It did. It's not Beautiful Mind, that hasn't gone wide yet.

How does he fucking know this? 2001, it's, well, Training Day would have been... It's Training Day. It's still, wow. It's in its second week, October 12th, 2001. It's in its second week, staying at number one. Yeah. A great, you know, fun movie that I think is a bit of a breakout surprise for a dark movie like that.

My brain always incorrectly thinks that movie came out in September, because it was supposed to, got pushed back only like two weeks because of 9-11, because they were like, maybe let people rebound. Oh, but you guys, I forgot this was in the fucking wake up. Oh my God. Huge. You know, because I was there, I was like five blocks away. I lived in the fucking wake up, oh my God. You know, cause I was there, you know, I was like five blocks away. I lived in the financial district when that happened.

It was fucking insane. Talk about trauma. But it was that weird echoey period where everything was so, and a movie like this, that premieres at the Cannes Film Festival in May and then comes out in theaters in October and you're like different realities. This is too different. I mean honestly it's kind of perfect. I mean it just it is the perfect kind

of thing to consume where you're like I want my attention. I want it. I want wrapped attention on something. Yes. And I don't want it to be a straightforward narrative in any way. There was a training day billboard on the West Side Highway that my we would drive by every day when my dad drove my siblings and I to school that said like whatever September 17th. Mm-hmm, and I saw it for so many months that in my brain I'm like that movie came out in September. This is our longest All right, we got a wrap up number two with the box So hard it's gonna be so mad trash him every time I get him here. Number two at the box office. New This Week Griffin. I feel like it's a film you liked at the time.

And I like it now? I don't know how you feel about it now. I just feel like you were kind of writing for it. It was a bit of an under performer. Big director, big actors. Which you're always rude to. That movie's solid. It's got great stuff in it. still have the 2001 Sam Raimi watcher Barry Levinson, I saw the 2000 Oscar watcher thing like back then 2000 It didn't have the juice it didn't make it. That thing's gonna be huge and instead it was like, okay This is Billy Bob Thornton. Yep, Bruce Willis and yeah, uh, Cate Blanchett. Three great performances all three of them

Number pretty excellent that film but a film that slightly underperforms. Yes number three at the box office is a film I wonder if yawn Ben the Hossley It's almost insulting for me to ask that question it is a comedy film Starring a member of the television show Saturday Night Live In October 2001 it's not is it time when people need to laugh it is not an SNL spin-off of the television show Saturday Night Live. Oh. In October 2001, it's not, is it? A time when people need to laugh. It is not an SNL spin-off movie, director. It is not.

But it starred, they were a cast member at this moment. That's a good question. It's not Corky Romano. Yes, it was, and yes, it is. Chris Catan is Corky Romano. Rude! You guys want some cookies? I'm kind of amazed that Corky Romano opened to nine million dollars. I'm like, that's a lot of money for Corky Romano. Rude! You guys want some cookies? I'm kind of amazed that Corky Romano opened to nine million dollars.

I'm like, that's a lot of money for Corky Romano. We were a proper country once. Wait, when was Zoolander at this point? Zoolander had come out three weeks ago. It's already with us. It's already with us. It came out last week in September and it's already out. It's at number seven.

It's down. It did? Yeah. That's all we could talk about. Yeah. All we talked about was Zoolander. I didn't realize it tanked. In New York City, it was the center of the universe and bombed everywhere else. That's sort of true, yes.

And America was definitely not ready for Zoolander right then. But my friends and I were quoting it obsessively. We all went to go see it after school. And Donnie Darko? Donnie Darko comes out August? Oh, I thought it was fall. I mean, Donnie Darko also, and I believe Donnie Darko literally came out on

September 11th basically. And I might be wrong though. But in other words, it might be a little later. But for a collection of people it was like, well this is clearly the most important. Cult. That was instant. Instant cult, yeah. Number four at the box office is a rom-com that I've just never liked. Serendipity.

You're always Bandits rude to I don't get it. I agree. It's a bummer. I don't think it's bad Curdled vibes, that's the thing. It's that's what it is. It's tired QZak He's good at playing mean Gen X er and they use it so well right in the high fidelities of the world away My serendipity you you're like, he hates this. Yeah, as he's coming off, and he's coming off Malkovich. Like he's coming off like this, oh cool, I mean, maybe Lloyd Dobler can do whatever, you know? And then he just goes straight.

And High Fidelities 2000, and then 2001 is Serendipity and America's Sweethearts, and it's like this guy has fucking. My sister loves American Sweetheart. Listen to the cowboy. American listen to the cowboy He listened to the cowboy the cowboy was like sometimes. There's a buggy and it's called American Sweetheart At least he's not in quirky Ramada. That's what I would tell him number five at the box office is a pretty solid thriller hit Famous for a line from the trailer. I'll never tell.

Don't say a word. Opened again, Zoolander. Fucking crushed it at the box office. She'll never tell. People thought Zoolander was going to do well. Number six is Iron Monkey, the Hong Kong martial arts film with Donnie Yen, which Miramax is putting out.

Oh, right, that's their year. That's their kind of like, let's get the crouching tiger thing going. Anything we can get in there to make a lot of money. Tarantino is putting a stamp on movies from four years ago and releasing them wide. You've got Zoolander, you've got Joy Ride, which is pretty fun. Paul Walker. I did a Photoshop of Deadpool faces on the poster.

Everyone laughed. Number nine, you've got a film. I'm sure Griffin saw Max Keeble's big move. You know what? I didn't. I guess you were maybe a little too old for it, right? I'd say a little too sophisticated. I just have taste.

Did I see Spy Kids three times in theaters the same year? Of course. Spy Kids is good. Corky Romano. Are you serious? I saw Corky Romano opening day. Me? Corky Romano? Yeah, that's actually- What about me says Corky Romano, are you serious? I saw Corky Romano opening day. Me? Corky Romano?

Yeah, that's actually- What about me says Corky Romano? You've seen so many bullshit movies with SNL guys in them. That's one of them. All right. I guess you have a point. Did you see the one where Jamie Kennedy, who I know is not an SNL guy- Malibu's Most Wanted.

Yeah, that one, Malibu's Most Wanted. Yeah. That face says yeah. How much worse is Corky Romano? Ben, Ben- Fine, I saw it. Yeah. That face says, yeah. How much worse is Corky Romano? Ben, Ben. Fine, I saw it. Ben, I love you.

And I want to say that I don't mean this in a pejorative way at all. Yes. You would actually love Corky Romano. If you watched it tonight, you would enjoy it. I don't know if I've ever met anyone that has the taste that Ben has. That's why he's the secret sauce.

It's, he's the whole thing. Not once. why never the secret sauce it sees the whole thing Fucking silencio scene You're just like I'm never gonna totally understand it. Yeah, how is he offended by you assuming? He likes corky Ramona No, it's like it is so I'm saying I track with what I'm saying, but there is an internal logic And it's on it started this episode at 10 a.m. That's that's the thing It is the silencio scene because 10 a.m. on Because it doesn't make any sense.

Friday, now it's Sunday. But it's the main thing you take away. Yes. It's the main thing you take away. Now I'm gonna turn the box office to Hearts and Atlantis. Jesus. I movie that. Eats farts.

It's the Shine Guy directing Anthony Hopkins. I remember convincing three friends, we should go see this. The Shine Guy. I hear there's a lot of Oscar buzz and they never let me live it. They shouldn't have That thing is fucking goose egging Like your husband isn't getting a tip of joining us on blank check You're so I mean this was a absolute. I'm really sorry. I can't wait I mean, this was an absolute pleasure. I'm really sorry how long this took.

I can't wait. I can't wait. I was settled in. I felt very bad. I will say your body language is relaxed. I'm very relaxed. I feel, I felt bad about Zodiac. I felt like we could have dug deeper.

I made a commitment to myself and I broke the record. Here's the thing about Mulholland Drive, we can still keep digging. There's plenty to dig. That's the thing. I was like, I could talk about this for another you know what we've been talking about it for four hours I guarantee a bunch of listeners are gonna complain we didn't go 20 minutes longer I wonder I'm actually you're right and I'm trying to think what it will be well What is the thing they did that we didn't talk about it doesn't matter we can talk about it later

We'll talk about not talking about it later. Yes Leslie It doesn't matter, we can talk about it later. We'll talk about not talking about it later. Yes. Leslie, acolyte, Disney+. Yeah. Disney+. You have a play off. I have a play. On Broadway. I have a play.

When does it start? It's called Cult of Love, and we start rehearsals in October. I'm not exactly sure of our preview start. I think it's mid-December. Okay, so when this is posting, it's starting in about a month. Go buy your tickets now at the Helen Hayes.

That's right. Second stage, Helen Hayes. Oh, yeah. Come, it'll be fun. There's music. As I told you, I saw... Not a musical, but has music in it. As I told you, I saw Bachelorette when the second stage put it on Uptown many years ago. That's right, you did. And now you're back with the second stage. That's exciting.

Yeah, and I haven't done theater in like, I want to say eight years. Wild. So yeah, I'm really excited to theater in like, I wanna say eight years. Wild. So yeah, I'm really excited to get back into it. I'm so excited. Thank you both for having me again. So great. Come back any time.

I said this to you before we recorded, but we had marked this episode as maybe this one guestless, maybe this is too big, maybe we don't need a guest. And we had been wanting to find someone to have you back on for, and it was like, let's just throw one flyer and see if she has any interest in doing this. And I leapt. If she wants to do it, we'd have a guest on.

But it was truly, we didn't offer it to anyone else. We had put it behind bars. I leapt at the chance. I, of course, wanted to come back. I had such a good time on Zodiac. I was very sad that it was only two and a half hours. That's so rude that you only gave us two hours and 45 minutes that time. And I was thinking, you know, I want to come back, but it's hard to top Zodiac.

I was like, there's, it would have to be a movie that's also in my top 10. And so I can't believe you guys. Next time we'll have you on for Corky Ramona. You'll wait until we do Corky. When Ben chooses it, because he's about to watch it and fall in fucking love. I didn't realize that there's a timer behind me. It's, we are hitting four hours. Well, it's part of intentional design that we put it behind the guests' heads so we're not making them self-conscious.

Thank you for being here. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for helping to produce this show. Thank you to AJ McKeon for editing, being our production coordinator, Joe Bowen, Pai Reynolds for our artwork, Lay Montgomery for our theme song, Ben is rubbing his head like he's fucking Balthazar. Just keep going Griffin, Jesus.

JJ Birch for our research, go blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon blank check special features. We do franchise commentaries, I think right now we're doing Andrew Lloyd Webber finishing up tabletop games, something like that. We're recording this episode 15 years in advance, and we've been here for so fucking long

Tune in next week for inland Empire Correct. Yeah, and as always There I go, this is the girl To get back to the sort of... Sorry, I'm on my phone. I'm just canceling something. Please cancel. Hell yeah. I'm just canceling something that's happening in two hours.

Great. We will be done, but you do you. I need to get home and I need to... So I apologize for being on. You do you. I'm just quickly, I'm going to check my phone because I have a flight a week from now and I'm going to push that back. Just keep going.

Just keep going and I'm going to jump back in. I'm going to push back the flight.