Blank Check with Griffin & David - Old with Marie Bardi

Episode Date: August 1, 2021

What if there was a beach that made you old? Only the mischievous mind of M. Night Shyamalan could conjure such a place! The gang (including Shyamalan Superfan and Blank Check social media manager Marie Bardi) dives into M. Night’s latest offering. Is it a “Glassterpiece”? Does Griffin even know what age he is anymore? Did Ben always have those wrinkles on his face? Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

there's something wrong with this podcast. Yeah. I just had to do it. Can I say what the second quote here on the old quote page for IMDb is? Yes. On the old or you're saying, okay, the old, the movie. It's new. This is a new IMDb page for the movie old. Okay.

Got it. The second quote is, Charles, I'm a doctor. a doctor jaron i'm a nurse my name is jaron good good scene i remember that can i how do how do they spell j is it jaron i was confused was jared or jaron this is written j-a-r-i-n that's correct that is how they spell it j-a-r-i-n yeah not interesting yeah i mean you know he's allowed to be called that. Yeah. He is. But I don't, yeah, I don't know why he's called Jaren.

But he's very much called Jaren. He is called Jaren. And that is his name. Yeah. I don't know if you guys know this. He got old. Jaren? Jaren got, spoiler alert, dead.

That's the oldest you can be. Doesn't get much older than that, does it? That's not true. There are various stages, dead. That's the oldest you can be. Doesn't get much older than that, does it? That's not true. There are various stages of dead. Yeah. Well, like, I don't want to get into too much. No, let's do it. Well, it's like, is a dead teenager older than a living old man?

How long have they been dead for? Well, I don't know. I think it all equals out once once you kick the bucket i just like like so what you're saying like a dead teenager okay well they died last week versus like they died in the 12th century are you saying the clock t keeps ticking post-death i guess that's my question the age right i feel like you're currently asking, is Casper the friendly ghost older than Regis Philbin? Sure. Absolutely.

Because Casper died when? Early 1900s? I don't know. Let's look it up. When did Casper die? How did he die? Murder? No, he got cold when he was sledding, correct?

His dad loved him too much. He gave him a sled just because he was a good boy. It wasn't even a holiday or a birthday or anything and he had so much fun with the sled that he died of hypothermia. It's the saddest movie ever made. Do you think there's like an alternate universe where Casper could have become Charles Foster Kane? Absolutely. Oh yeah, like his

sled is rosebud or whatever. Because Casper's rich, right? Because he lives in a fancy house. Yeah, and his dad spends the rest of his life building an anti-ghost machine. Who's his dad? He's not bringing this movie up all the time his dad is wait his dad is not played by an actor there was there was bill pullman is the human i couldn't remember if it was daniels or pullman i knew pullman is a current day ghost hunter right and richie is his his daughter right and right his wife died yes and he is trying to reconnect with his wife they move

into this house where casper's eccentric father after accidentally killing his son by giving him too good of a gift i think the rest of his life trying to reverse death yeah okay the movie is strange i just remember that at the end he's briefly corporeal and he's devon saba correct yeah they slow dance and kiss but right then he but it's not permanent he and he's Devin Sopper, correct? Yeah, and they slow dance and kiss. But it's not permanent? No, it's a wish granted by the dead wife of Will Pullman. I think it's Amy Brenneman maybe plays

the wife of Pullman. Oh no, she was... Did Brad Silberling direct it? Correct. Okay, yeah, they were married. I don't know if they still are. She comes back to life as like an angel for Casper. There's this concept they keep on talking about, which is unfinished business where like Casper's brothers or his uncles rather than him are still around. They haven't passed on to the other realm because they have unfinished business they have to resolve.

And that his wife perhaps has gone on to that zone where she becomes like an angel. And so to reward Casper, because spoiler, Casper got the fucking anti-death machine to work, but there was only enough juice to make one ghost of Fleshy again, and he gave it generously to Bill Pullman, who fell through a manhole after getting too drunk with a bunch of rowdy ghosts. I don't know. My pants are not

fitting right now really well. I don't know. Is anyone feeling that? I just feel like my clothes are not too loose. I feel that way too. Because I lost some weight recently, but I've been getting it back, and now I'm feeling a little suffocated by my pants. I think this is a reference to what happens

to the children in the movie Old. What are you talking about? But you're not... Okay, yeah. That does happen to the children in the movie Old, of course. They grow because they're kids. And they're on the beach that makes you old yeah technically it's the rocks that make you old but they're on the beach that makes you old it's the rocks well i'm just saying to just make sure to keep you know observe me make sure that nothing is like happening with each other in the 15 okay and then maybe every 15 minutes after that okay

okay right uh anyway casper very generously lets Bill Pullman come back to life, and then Bill Pullman's dead wife comes back to reward him by saying you get to be a real boy, but only Cinderella rules. It's like two hours and it goes back, and he dances with Christina Ricci, and they kiss, and it's very nice. Then everyone at the party realizes they're levitating because he's

a ghost. He's played by Devin Sawa, and then the movie ends with Little Richard singing Casper the Friendly Ghost. And this is a Devin Sawa. And then the movie ends with little Richard singing Casper, the friendly ghost. And this is a podcast about Casper, right? The, uh, 1995 movie by Brad Silberling.

I believe so. Right. Yeah. 95, four or five. You know, it looks like 95, 95.

Uh, yes, that's right. So thank you for exploring Casper with me, which is also about child, child, uh about child mortality, I guess, in its way. Yeah, that's how we got here.

Yes. Okay. But no, this is actually a podcast about filmography. It's a podcast. David's waving his hat. Do the thing. Do the thing. Do the thing.

It's 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 they get old, baby. Yes, we do get old.

We are all getting old. I mean, someone pointed out every beach makes you old in that time marches on. Someone had this good tweet that was show me a beach that makes you young, then you got a movie there. And it's like, whoa! But, you know, you're getting

old real fast, that's all. Yeah, I mean, Ben, I feel like I'm seeing wrinkles on you now that I wasn't seeing two minutes ago. Wait, really? I don't know. We'll get back to that later. This is a podcast, as we said, usually based around miniseries, right? These filmographies.

Sure. But the first guy we ever talked about. Number one. I mean, number two, if you'd have count George Lucas, I suppose. But number one. That was Cheers. This is Frasier. Yeah.

Right. Well, OK. But then what are all the other ones? Are we still in Frasier? I'm sorry. I didn't know there was only one season of Frasier. That's a good question. Frasier is the show. Yeah show starting with M. Night Shyamalan

and then Patreon is the new Frasier reboot that apparently will have no other returning cast members Hyde Pierce not involved? recent Kelsey Grammer comments have made it sound like no one's returning and his big story hook for this new reboot he's rich Fras He's rich. No but like

Frazier's rich. He keeps on saying like when he rich. He's gonna be like really rich. I don't remember a lot of Frazier plots about how he was like hurting for money. Like a fucking baby grand piano in his apartment. Yeah it's true they're always drinking sherry.

Sherry ain't cheap. No. Come on. Yeah. But this time he They're always drinking sherry. Sherry ain't cheap. No. Come on. Yeah. But this time he's going to be like, He's really drinking. And also his dad's dead. His brother doesn't talk. Well, this is the thing.

Like, obviously, John Mahoney is not with us anymore. His dad being dead is perfectly plausible. Yeah, he got old. But you can't not have Niles. I mean, I agree. Okay. Is the dog coming back? He hates that dog.

I don't think anybody likes the dog. This is one of my favorites. Wasn't it Eddie? Eddie. Yeah, it was two dogs. But the dog was Moose. Well, Moose was one of the... The dog that's in The Artist was the second Frazier dog.

Right, right. I can't remember. The first dog was Moose, which I remember because Disney Adventures magazine used to always say there was going to be a movie called moose on the loose it was about moose the star of fraser getting lost and it was gonna be like a road trip movie where he has to get back to set maybe they maybe there was only because he's also in my dog skip sure moose moose was huge for a while they were gonna make a movie yeah i think he was replaced at some point i think think so. I can't remember. He used to look at Frasier.

That was the joke. Well, this is the thing. And he would behold Frasier. Everyone would, oh, spinoff. How's that going to work? The show's like a hit right out of the box. Everyone's talking about Moose. And you read interviews with Kelsey Graham from the first season.

He's like, every goddamn person asked me what it's like working with the dog. It's a dog. It's not an actor. He's like, the dog looks at me. That's not acting. It's not impressive. I don't know. I saw some of those really funny scenes with the dog and the dog's given something. He's given something. I agree.

It's just the thing of like, actors are really trained animals anyway, and they don't like to admit it. He does not like to admit it. M. Night Shyamalan, the Frasier of this this podcast our first guy and when we were trying to figure out what the show was going to be moving past ours you know we come with this blank check premise yep and it's like well the obvious guy i talked about is m night chamelon he was yours and wachowski's were mine yeah those are the first two guys we brought to

the table as like these are the right but it just felt obvious that it's like well m night chamelon is the exact case study of what we're interested in here and at that point in time we thought we were more going to cover people who had like rise and fall arcs in that kind of way right like people who kind of lost it visit hadn't come out visit had come out we hadn't seen we hadn't seen it that's what it was sure now i also just want to say marie i don't know if you know this but uh there was a period of time where i was really trying to sell them on the name of, what was it? Griffle and Simsburg.

What? He said we need a cleaner branding post-Star Wars, and he sent us a doc with a bunch of suggestions, but the ones that was circled a bunch of times was Griffle and Simsburg present. Oh, like Siskel and Ebert.

Well, yes. In fact, that is what Ben was going for. Oh, no. Griffle and Simsbert. Griffle and Simsbert. It was a pitch. We can always, like the new Frasier reboot,

reconsider. But just wanted to remind you guys and our listeners that was a thing I had suggested. That is what the subtitle is for the new Frasier reboot. Frasier colon, a reconsideration. That was a thing I had suggested. That is what the subtitle is for the new Frazier reboot. Frazier colon a reconsideration.

Colon a peacock original. Our guest today, of course, for the first time on Main Feed, is someone who does not run the social media accounts for Griffle and Simsburg. No. But she has recently become a big part of the Blank Check family. And if you're on Patreon, you heard her on our March Madness updates where she had a very easy, normal time running

the March Madness votes. No complaints. Marie Barty, Barty, Barty. Hi. Hey, guys. Billy Native threw her name down

and said, well, if we're going to talk old, I want to talk M. Night. Isn't Marie mentioned in the Wide Awake episode? Because Marie is in Wide Awake, right? Marie is here. Fun fact. I am in Wide Awake episode? Because Marie is in Wide Awake, right? Marie is here.

Fun fact, I am in Wide Awake. His second film. I believe I was mentioned in the Village episode. Oh, because Daryl was the guest. I think he was the one who gave us the bombshell info that you were in. Yeah. I have a very long history with M. Night Shyamalan. We're going to get into it.

Yeah, let's get into it. Yeah, let's get into it right now. But yes, but you are in Wide Awake. That is the one. I am in Wide Awake. I am a non-sag background performer. Griffin and David, you both grew up. Please call us Griffle and Simsburg.

Griffle and Simsburg. You both grew up in metropolitan areas. New York City, I think. New York City, I think. Only New York? I think so. You guys are only from New York? The one in Don.

And so you have spoken about being spotted by casting directors looking for kids. Oh, showing our ridiculous, absurd privilege where if you are a fucking spoiled little Lord Fauntleroy who goes to a private school in New York City, you cannot avoid getting brought into five open casting calls. Yes, exactly. Because they're looking for Moppets. I'm from a little city 99 miles from New York called Philadelphia. And I was in the second grade

and there was an unknown filmmaker named M. Night Shyamalan who had also gone to my grade school, Waldron Mercy Academy in Marion Station, Pennsylvania. At this point, for folks who did not listen to our M. Night miniseries,

he's made one film. It's called Praying with Anger. It was released, I believe, in one theater. I think it only played at the Cinema Village in New York City. It's a tiny budget film that he starred in himself.

So Wide Awake is a big step up, but this is a guy who does not really have any reputation at this point in time. Just complete no one. He wrote this movie about his time in Catholic school, the same Catholic school that I was at the time attending. It starred Joseph Cross and Robert Loja and most importantly, Rosie O'Donnell as a nun. The reason I saw it opening weekend. Robert Loja is the kindly grandpa

who's like, it's okay. Why do I care? You gotta run. I'm gonna be dead soon. I'm going to a beach. He's all flashbacks in the movie. Yes.

And he's the kid that Joseph Cross plays is dealing with the death of his grandfather. Right. Yes. And he's the kid that Joseph Cross plays is dealing with the death of his grandfather. Right. So yes, this is one of my five favorite movies. A very wise decision on the part of production was to shoot it, you know, at an active school. And they used all of us students as either background or some older kids got featured roles. And it was my first time on a movie set. I was eight. You got the bug? I got the bug. I got to sit in a hair and makeup chair to go through the works very quickly. They didn't really do anything to me because I was one of like 60 children that

they were seeing that day. But it was very exciting. And then we all got the option of going to the premiere in New York at the Ziegfeld Theater. Wow. It was a Miramax production. So Harvey Weinstein was there and Bob Weinstein and weirdly enough, Al Gore.

Oh. I'm not- Well, he wanted America to be wide awake to the threat of climate change. Yes. I don't know. This is 99? No, this is 98?

97? Oh, no, no. Sixth Sense is 99. Sixth Sense is 99. This is like 97, 98. I was in second grade in office. That's the thing I'm trying to assume. The film came out in March 1998.

Al Gore is currently the vice president of the United States. I still, to this day, have no idea why he was there. Bill, I need to. In my i need my opinion i must stop the stealer for that far i think he's still vice president i think the rest of it's been staged see i'm just imagining like al knocking on bill's door the oval office and going like hey bill i need to borrow air force one i gotta see wide away this is a tie tie kid and he needs to be wide awake the movie is called wide awake

but he's asleep Clinton's hyped up about loja I love that guy I'm doing real half assed Gordon impressions can you say

can you say lockbox for us lockbox lockbox I was on board for Halloween in fucking 2000 that sketch still kills.

Yeah. It's still so good. And then you, and like, I remember I show it to someone and I'm like, he said lockbox. You don't need to worry about why.

Yeah, not only that, but like he said lockbox and then Twitter didn't exist so no one made the joke for seven days. Right, everyone was just like,

oh my God. Oh my God. Which speaking of, I want to resume the wide away conversation, but it is funny that, like, the couple times a year we get to cover a new release movie, right? People are like, oh, man, I can't wait to hear the bits.

They're going to do this and that. I do feel like it's now gotten to the point where it's like SNL, not in terms of our prominence, but like, oh, a debate happens on Tuesday or whatever, and then the next six days, everyone's tweeting what jokes they think are going to be made, where I'm just like, oh, a debate happens on Tuesday or whatever. And then the next six days, everyone's tweeting what jokes they think are going to be made. I'm just like, I had a bunch of stuff in the chamber

and it's like, I can't do old member. I love old. It's kind of, at this point, it's already been done. Everyone did it. By the time this episode's released. Right, that's what I'm saying. That's why we're going back to the lockbox. That's why we're going back to the lockbox

because all the old jokes have been taken. I have this urge to do my taxes right now and i don't know why man what's going on did you always have those hairs coming out of your ears no wait what oh my god they're so long what's happening to me weirdly long yeah like do i need to shave them are they that distracting i can get you a little you a little clipper that you put in. You can use it on your nose hairs too. I'm seeing a bit of those. Oh God, I'm hideous. I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry you have to see me like this. No, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. What was the name of the movie that Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando did together? The Missouri Breaks, 1971. Thank you for having a quick answer. That's solved a lot of problems,

saved a lot of time. The Missouri Breaks. I wish someone would have told him. Marie, question for you. Yes. This experience, filming Wide Awake, kickstarts your love affair

with the movie-making process. It does. Now, M. Nightmare, as we said, has no reputation at this point in time. He's not a known quantity, but beyond that, only one movie later, not only is he this prodigy,

is he on the cover of Time magazine, is he Oscar nominated, all this sort of shit. He also then immediately has a thing that made him such a prime subject for us at the beginning of Blank Check, like a brand, right? He's got an identity. People have an idea of what he represents. He remains, if not the biggest name involved with any movie, like kind of splitting the bill. Because you even think about movie, like kind of splitting the bill. Because you even think about it, the period of time where he's working with like huge movie stars at their peak,

the advertising is, can you believe Mel Gibson's in an M. Night Shyamalan movie? You know? Yeah. And half the time he is the biggest name. I remember it being a huge deal when Bryce Dallas Howard was cast as the lead in The Village because it was like her first thing

he's gonna make her and it was oh that's a star making role it was like the same conversation that people had when Rooney Mara was cast in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo right it was the role every 20 early 20s actress was hunting for he's either working with the top he's making stars himself you know but it's like everything's written that decision what was your memory like of him on set He's making stars himself, you know, but it's like everything's written that decision. What was your memory like of him on set?

I'm curious what he was like in those early days, especially before he has any sort of reputation to uphold. So I was I was like eight. So my memory of him specifically. So you were young. I was very young. It is not. No, I was not old old i was i was young i was about the same age as um the the little boy what's his name trent casper no sorry well also probably casper's age as well yeah i i was you know in between trent and casper's

ages um i don't really remember him on set i I remember him at the premiere. Yeah. Of the movie. Because he, it was, you know, you're at the Ziegfeld and then there's like a podium and it's like Harvey Weinstein goes up and he speaks. Yeah. And he's a big character. Sure is. And Al Gore goes up and speaks. And then it's this little guy. Yeah. Who just seemed, I mean, I think Knight must have been like

mid-30s at the time. And just, he just was like, oh, it's this, this is the guy who made the movie? Like, I mean, I knew who he was, but it was, it just did not feel like he was the biggest star at his own premiere. It is funny how for like 10 or 15 years, M. Knight got very caught up with like,

I need to seem mysterious. I'm like a master of horror. I'm creating this sort of mystery around me, which obviously hits its peak with like the fucking buried secret and everything. Three of us went to see old together. Ben, Marie, Griff. David saw himself earlier on a mysterious beach. And it's Crosby Street

Hotel, but sure. There's some weird rocks in the building of that hotel. Um, but when we saw it at an AMC, there was like a pre movie message before M night. And it was just kind of a stark contrast of just like now M night. So like a totally avuncular, like,

Hey, thank you so much for coming out to the sea. My movie old, I really hope it scares the shit out of you. Social media seems to have changed him in that regard. Cause he's kind of active on it, right? And he's very like fun dad on it. He's active on Twitter.

The thing that I think is interesting, I was just listening to a podcast on my ride over here to our beach recording studio. It was an interview he did with this NPR podcast specifically about entrepreneurship and resiliency. I forget the name of the podcast, but I will tweet about it. He refers to himself as mischievous.

He is. This guy's a little fucking scamp. I'll tell you that much after watching this movie. He is an absolute scamp. And he referred to himself as mischievous instead of mysterious. Because it was, you know, how do you see yourself, Knight, as someone who originally got this reputation as being like a bit of a master of darkness? And getting caught up in this Hitchcock thing where it's like,

I have to be playing the role all the time. Yeah, I mean, obviously playing the role all the time. I mean, obviously, we covered it in our podcast and you should go listen back, but the buried secret of M. Night Shyamalan, your first movie role.

Right, which I was cut out of. Yeah. Is, uh, is he, that's, that's the height. Not all of us make the final cut of an M. Night Shyamalan project. That's the height of him.

Sorry, Griffin. I'm in the race scene. Being in his own head about his image as the next Hitchcock or whatever. And he's's like i need to present myself as this like spooky ghost right right it's it's fascinating but because as you said like when you step back you're like he's the guy directed wide awake you're almost surprised this guy's a director

there's something kind of like you know there is something impish about him i an interview i feel like i probably brought this up at some past point in the podcast, but he did an episode of Norm Macdonald's very short-lived Netflix talk show that was incredibly good. And most of his guests on that show were comedians, right? And you're like, why is M. Night going on this? But I think he's entered this state of being very candid and open and reflective about everything. Has he done Marin yet oh it's a good

question has he i don't think he has but i i mean here's it's got to be in the works here's the thing it doesn't look like he has i don't think he could do marin because i think mark marin no offense to mark man probably still thinks of shamalan is like what that like bad movie director because this is the thing that's happened with old. It's come out, and this reaction has been predictable, but it's half people being like, it's so great to see this guy making movies that are original and interesting.

Let's just say, obviously, two movies that no one sees despite the second one featuring a star-making performance from Marie Barty. Sixth Sense is a fucking global phenomenon. He's a brand. Then it starts to be like, what's the deal? What's the deal? what's the deal what's the deal it becomes a joke bomb bomb bomb bottoms out and then he's been on this upward trajectory since we finished the miniseries yes but i think that but glass divided people despite being profitable i think that among many people yes they're just

still like well yeah but he like makes bad movies yeah I've had this conversation many times this week when I Marie what are you doing on Friday night guys I'm going to see old I'm so excited wait the M. Night Shyamalan movie

the reason I'm bringing up the timeline thing is just because I feel like when the visit came out people were like that's surprisingly good and even people like you and I were

like really can it be we watch it we're like fuck it's good by the time split comes out people are like that looks good like people are surprised there's no tongue-in-cheek nature to it fuck that looks good comes out people like it a lot it's a humongous hit when glass was coming out there was genuine excitement this guy got his groove back i would say especially because of it's star

studded it's recalling his past stories two movies that people liked and then glass did not win over a majority of the audience so now old you're back in this zone where it's like oh he's now back to very strong defenders and people who just laugh him out of conversation immediately yeah yeah i just think there's this i don't know we're gonna talk about i mean this movie is exceptional i agree love it it's one of the best movies of the year i think there's this, I don't know. We're going to talk about it. I mean, this movie is exceptional. I agree. Love it. It's one of the best movies of the year.

I think it's his best movie since The Village. And I like a lot of his other movies. That is pretty much what we said. I might agree with you. S-tier. I walked out. I think I told you this. I was like on a high. I'm loving it.

I get a text from a film critic I shall not name. Who's a friend of the show. Was it Erlich? Yes. It was. And he's like nitpicking. He's like, what was up with this? And I was just like, stop fucking talking to me right now. I'm on cloud nine.

I'm riding an M9 high. I don't want to be brought to earth with your negativity. The movie ends, we're just sort of sitting there reeling, right? Marie, Ben, and I. And I'm just like, I love this guy so fucking much.

And like, I get it. You're either all the way in or all the way out at this point. We've gone through so many cycles with this dude, you know? But like, I just fucking love what he is. I love who he is. I have more appreciation for even like the movies that I feel like I was more critical about

back when we did the show. Like, fucking After last airbender you're never gonna sell me on right but the ones i want to write i want to go back to her lady in the water and happening now i know you were you you have i'm pro lady in the water i was anti-happening but i happening really walberg is just i think old is better happening like yes. It's far, but yes, I get the comparison. When he was doing all the happening press, his whole thing was like, look, I don't want to be pretentious. I'm not trying to win Oscars anymore.

I'm just trying to make the best B movie of all time. And we were sort of critical of that where it's like, oh, he's acting like he's above this thing. Or he's trying to change the narrative after the bad reviews came in. Right, and this actually feels like, oh, this is like a fucking champagne of B movies. Like this is.

Elevated Twilight Zone episode. That's true. That's what I want. That's absolutely true. It is interesting though. Because. I mean yes. He does.

Now refer to himself as mischievous. Uh huh. But he also referred to old as like. Bergman Island. Not to. Steal the title of Mia Hansen loves movie. But still. I mean I think there there

are elements of true art film in it this is what I'm watching wild strawberries and he's like yeah but what if this guy was at a beach that maybe like what if we like just kind of like hit the pedal to the metal or whatever this is what I love and this is why I'm just like look maybe he's blown his career again right like maybe he was back was back. Hear me out. Hear me out. I think he was at a point where he had successfully for a couple of years killed all of the sort of obvious jokes about him. He had. It was partly by Gus. Yeah, he had.

Basically. He had. Right? He was in a provisional state where people were like. But even this under the radar way. Yes. Where it was like, if I stopped someone on the street and I was like, we heard a split, I don't even know

if they would have known it was Shyamalan so much. I mean, $150 million. Well, they did after the movie ended. Right, the fucking tweet,

all that sort of shit. It was so triumphant, you know, and it was like, this is a different style. He has dropped his pretension. His interviews kept on saying, like,

I just want to scare people. I just want to scare people. Here's my argument. Yes. As much as, yes, sure, they knew split was made by him yeah but i do feel like with split not for nerds like us so much but for the general public that was the james mcavoy movie and just oh this thing looks scary and but it would like when you watch it and you're like wow that's that movie where that actor i sort of know from like x-men or whatever was really going wild let's acknowledge another thing, which is... Blumhouse?

Hey, yeah. Yeah, sure. And then the general... It's a horror movie. It's sort of been a horror movie I saw. That's the other thing I was going to say is at this point, his career has been going on for like 20 years

and someone like my sister, who is younger, is like, Split looks scary. Should I see that? Right. And she does not know that Sixth Sense has a twist ending.

She's not like cackling at the very sight of M. Night's name. His name means nothing. It's just that movie looks scary. It's made by that producer who makes scary shit. The other thing to sort of acknowledge with this is like, in the Norm Macdonald interview, right? He sort of talked about his career bottoming out

and feeling like he'd lost his way and went too far up his own butt and got really defensive. The more people criticized him, the more he doubled down on his shit and all that sort of stuff. But the other thing he said is like, you know, I got really successful

really, really young. Sure did. He's not that old. How old is M. Night? I mean... Now he's 40. He's 50 years old. He was born in 1970.

He's 50 years old. I mean, look. I mean, unless he's on any beaches. Right. The point is, he's 28, 29 when The Sixth Sense comes out. That's his third movie.

It becomes one of the 10 highest grossing movies of all time. It becomes one of the youngest Best Director nominees. All this sort of shit, right? And he's like, it was so big. Everyone was expecting all this shit from me. And I started buying into my shit too much in all of this. And then he said, I think I lost my way. I was trying to prove people wrong rather than doing what made me happy.

All this sort of stuff. But the thing he said that I thought was really interesting was he talked about how, like, he would study other directors' careers, right? And he would go, there's like this point in your career where you have a lot of ambition

and a lot of ideas and you don't have the craft yet. You don't know how to make the movie yet, right? And then there's some fulcrum point where the two things collide in opposite directions. Your knowledge, your understanding, your experience of how to do the technical thing collides with you being in a pure creative state, you know, and you know what you're doing, but you're not over intellectualizing it. And then from that point on, the two things start to go in the opposite directions again. And it's hard to get

it back because you know what you're doing too well. You're trying to replicate success, all this sort of shit. And the thing he said was, I knew I had to be scared again. I need to feel like I had something at stake here. So for Split, for Glass, and for The Visit, I said them in a mixed up order. He goes to Blumhouse. He mortgages his house in Philadelphia. And he says, I'm putting my own money into this.

Self-producing it. I need to feel like this movie needs to be a hit because it's literally my livelihood on the line. So he goes small. He goes insular. He has complete creative control. And those movies are all three financial hits at varying levels. Old is he's not at Blumhouse. He's a big Universal.

He's working with an actual budget again. This is sort of him for the first time in a little while back to playing by the old rules of how he used to operate.

Well, let me complicate this. Sure, sure. I was, again, listening to this NPR podcast, the name of which I'm forgetting. Old was an interesting production because it was an entirely COVID shot bubble movie. Everyone quarantined in the Dominican Republic.

They had to contend with the weather, which sounds, you know, which is going to be intense. Did they start right before COVID? No. They started right after? They started in September of 2020. Yes.

That's wild. So late September. Yeah. So I believe it was an eight week shoot. Yes. That's wild. So late September. Yeah. So I believe it was an eight week shoot. Yep. And they, he,

Knight bought out the hotel. Yeah. And everyone who, you know, was there was fully there. No one was on set who wasn't supposed to be.

And it was that he was kind of running his own little universe that he had complete control over. I think the movie maybe cost like $18 million. Yep. That's the list of budget. Which is, it's a budget.

It's not, compared to what other movies made by directors at his level in the studio system, it's pretty small. But I'm correct he didn't self-finance this one, right? Or at least not entirely. I don't know because I feel like he sort of reveals that later. I don't think so. He kind of gives us an M. Night Shyamalan. This is not a Blumhouse.

This is just a Universal film. It's Big Universal. And I'm sure Big Universal is totally fine greenlighting an $18 million M. Night Shyamalan movie at this point. The movie made back, you know, that domestically on weekend one during Delta. So it's like, you know, they're not really taking a hit. Yeah. It is just all interesting.

I mean, he had... Now I'm trying to, like, figure out timeline shit. But it's like, this... shit, but it's like this, the book that it's based on, I know he read when he was preparing for Glass. Someone found an Instagram post of his when he was prepping Glass that he bought a bunch of comics to try to re-assimilate himself

within the current comics landscape. It's a Belgian, I believe, comic book. Yes. From what I've heard... Starting point. Right. It's a pretty big jumping off point. He liked it, but more than anything, he liked the basic concept and he wrote what is largely an original

film with that as a starting point. I think the film was supposed to start shooting a few months before September. Okay. That's what I was trying to figure out. He did as much as he could before getting to the Dominican Republic.

He storyboarded every shot, you know, everything that he could prepare for, he did. And then, you know, he gets there and he... See, I don't know how... He didn't go into the granular details of the script and what was changed post-COVID. It seems very much like it was, what is the word I'm looking for? It begins with a G, means you're pregnant with something.

Gestating. Gestating. Yes. I was going to say gesticulating, but that's not the right word. It was gestating during COVID. Okay. The COVID resonance of the film is very, it's very strong. It does feel deliberate

and I think it probably is. He does say that he, you know, purposely made it two settings. Yeah. I mean, he was trying to keep it

as small and as COVID bubbly as possible. It's a small group of people outdoors. Yes. In a set location for most of the run.

I mean, it's the same thing as fucking White Lotus, where like, I was talking about this with Ram yesterday, but HBO was like, we can't fucking film anything. Mike White, if you have any ideas that take place in Hawaii, we'll give you a green light in two months. Yeah. And you're going to have 15 actors who are ready to do it. And you just like get rich people to resort.

There's a murder. And they're like, sure. Yeah. Cool. Can Alexandria Daddario be in it though right but that's the thing you get all this like these fucking great actors because they have nothing else to do like old is similarly kind of ingenious in that way old has a pretty stacked cast of character actors you know no superstars obviously but you know like when you know someone like uh thomas

and mckenzie i'm like oh she must be sort of a secondary lead here and it's like she's not really oh what's the other girl the the girl with the australian actress oh eliza scanlon yeah right like oh wow she's in this too yeah it's a she has a pretty small role it's true yeah i mean it's all i mean like it's all kind of established people by and large. Pretty much. Yeah. Is this Vicky Creeps' first major release post-Phantom Thread? Yeah.

In the US? You know, she has a brief part in The Girl on the Spider's Web, which we all remember and love. Of course, we all got caught. It's a movie that definitely exists. We got caught in the web.

We were all caught in the web. Where she plays... I saw that film. The editor, I guess, of Mike whatever. Daniel Craig, except it's not Daniel Craig anymore. It's some other fucking... You know, the journalism guy.

Sure. So she's got a small part of that. So wait. So she's like the Robin Wright role? Yes. She's the one at the magazine who's like, what is your story about the girl in the spider's web? And he's like, listen, I can't sleep with you right now. I have to leave. And it's a thankless role.

That's the only thing I've seen her in. I do feel like you and I, David, have spent the last two plus years or whatever going like, where's Creeps? Where is Creeps? Where's Creeps? Just fire up the pancake pan, man. She had the world wrapped around her finger let's make some let's make some creeps who's from luxembourg vicky creeps right she did the secretary series she should be secretary general

right now she's in bergman island like now she's starting to do stuff again but um Now she's starting to do stuff again. She's in that movie Beckett that John David Washington is in. That's a movie. That's a movie. I don't really know much about it, but J.D.W. looking hot. She's in a movie that Barry Levinson made called The Survivor. Interesting.

That's going to be a TIFF this year, I guess. Okay. It's a Ben Foster boxing movie. Ben Foster boxing movie. We all have to's a Ben Foster boxing movie. Ben Foster boxing movie. We all have to make our Ben Foster boxing movie. I cannot wait to hear about how he prepared for that role. Wait, what? What do you mean? You think he got in the ring with someone?

Look, I don't think he did less. I think he probably did much more than he needed to. Oh, right. I watched Ain't Nobody Sane. So Foster's really good in that. I mean, Ben Foster's great. I wish only the best for him. He's great except for when he, you know, whatever, spills the ham.

I tend to love watching him on the big screen. And I perversely love watching him do interviews talking about what he did for those performances. See, I don't know about that side of Ben Foster. Did he like hang out with dead soldiers for The Messenger? Absolutely. And the famous one is that he took all the drugs that Lance Armstrong took

and then in interviews was like, but I wouldn't recommend most actors do that. I just needed to do it. He's actually good in that movie. I'm sure he is. I've heard people like that movie. He's usually good. The funniest thing would be

if he like hung out with birds to play Angel or whatever, right? He just like spent two weeks with birds. Speaking of, you know, age, time, everything. Did you guys ever watch that Canadian show that was on the Disney channel? Was it called Flash Forward? It was him and Jules Tate.

Yeah. Yes, I love that. There was another show called Flash Forward. There are two shows called Flash Forward. He was on Goofy Flash Forward, which is sort of like a proto-Even Stevens. And he was playing like Shia Goofball, dude. Sure, I mean, because I remember him as a young actor.

He was very cute. He was on Six Feet Under. But he was like doing the voices and the rubber faces and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, geez, here it is. It's a 1996. But I feel like there was some sort of time progression element, like the opening segment,

like the credits were him and Jewel State as like little kids, and then you see them growing up really fast and now they're best friends, but also like, you know, adolescence, so being a boy who's friends with a girl is kind of complicated. Anyway. Ben Foster is not an old. He's not old.

He's got a great cast. Although Ben Foster feels like he is dying to do a Shyamalan movie. Like you could imagine Ben Foster. He would fit in the Philadelphia universe for sure. That's true. They'd be egging each other out. And you give him like a Rufus Sewell type unraveling. Can we talk Rufus Sewell? We're going to talk Rufus Sewell.

We're going to. I guess we can get there. We'll get there. We're going to talk. Yeah, we need to wait for the van to come and bring us all right yeah m night needs to drive us in the van that was an early thing i mean like going out of order here but when when m night is driving the van and then opening the gate marie turns to me her like brain is exploding she's like this is the best director cameo of all time it is incredible it. It's something let's get it out of the way. He's literally driving you

to the premise of the movie and going come right in here you go here's the And he is he's literally table setting. He's table setting

and then he goes to a mountain and it's on a video village. Believe me. I saw it. I think the movie's over. I think we've hit the ending. Believe me. M. Night Shyamalan

as we know loves to be in his movies. He does. Much like Big Al Hitchcock used to do it. What's his name? Red Reddy? What was that character's name who killed Mel Gibson's wife?

I believe it is Red Reddy. Yes. Reddy rings a bell. Sometimes he's bad, such as in Signs, where he plays the guy who killed Mel Gibson's wife. Not a great performer.

Sometimes he's... You're just like, oh, there's M. Night Shyamalan for a second, right? He's like playing a doctor. I'm a doctor. I think this kid can see dead people. And you're like, fine. You a night someone for a second yeah he's like playing a doctor I'm a doctor I think this kid can see dead people and you're

like fine you did what you needed to do he finally found the perfect thing he he's good in this movie so good I think he's good good it's actually it's a really good it's charming that he's in it but there's something a little bit squirrely about how he plays on camera and I will say I no longer think it applies to him in interviews but as an actor there's something a little uneasy

about him and that's perfect for this yeah it's perfect for this where he's playing too hard to be like hey i'm like nice chill guy he has the one line because in the village he's got that line where he's like he has to explain like the entire plot of the village or whatever. His village cameo is like too fucking clever. He's out of focus. He's like putting. He has the one line where he's like, yeah, I watched for like 90 seconds or whatever. And you're like, wait, that's not long.

Okay, whatever. It doesn't matter. We're moving on here. But apart from that, perfect. Perfect. I just loved seeing him. The rear window shot with the big camera oh so good i was delighted i was cackling if we're talking about him being

mischievous yes it was quite an impish little cameo he's in on the joke he's in on the joke finally finally he's in on the joke was he in on the joke and lady in the water no no no no no he's into no that's right i forgot that's the apotheosis that's the one where you need to tell stories because you help save the world but you're saying is he in on the joke and that's what we're missing about the lady i need to i've only seen lady in the water once i and i saw it like maybe four years ago uh it's so fucking weird i don't think i was prepared for how weird it is. What are they called?

Snarfs? Snarfs. There's snarfs and scrunts. And, you know. Frederick is having one jacked arm. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know,

Paul Giamatti loves puzzles. Drinking milk and like convulsing on a couch. I mean, there's a lot of stuff. Maybe, maybe it would, maybe I would benefit from seeing it again in a post

mischievous night Shyamalan. Yes. You know, frame of mind. Is that the beginning of it? I like that movie a lot, from seeing it again in a post mischievous night Shyamalan yes you know frame of mind is at the beginning of his life I like that movie a lot but I don't think

that movie is in on the joke and I think that movie has a lot of comedy and a lot more humor than people were expecting it's a very sincerely told movie yes

right it has that sort of story book right she's playing a character called story but you know right like that's what I remember of it it's got this very bedtime story by amish hamlet right i think that was all disarming to people because it was so different than what he was thought of as doing but i think

his the framing of him in that movie does not feel like it is in on the joke but like i think that's him reckoning with people told me i was the new spielberg i think this is him going this is who i want to be i want to be cackling at the top of a mountain. Yes. While weird shit happens to some people who don't know how to talk to each other. But this movie is his kind of like Spielberg if an iron girder just fell on Spielberg's head kind of thing.

Yeah. Down to the like 10 more minutes at the end where you're like, okay. You know, where you're like, do we need the 10 more minutes? And I'm like, you know what? I'll take the 10 more minutes. Like Spielberg starting out with like, you know, where you're like, do we need the 10 more minutes? And I'm like, you know what? I'll take the 10 more minutes. Like Spielberg starting out with like, you know, Night Gallery and Name of the Game and then going to Duel and that sort of stuff. And Jaws.

You're like, well, but I'm saying Jaws sort of becomes a sixth sense moment, right? Where it's like, you have elevated this to an art form. But he wasn't trying to. He wasn't. Neither was M. Night, arguably. Exactly. It's sixth sense. Right, right, right.

And then M. Night was like, you are correct. I did just do that. You know? Well, then that's the problem with the happening. The last airbender after he feels like he's scrambling. He feels like he's trying to get by his own glories. Right. Right. Right.

And he's like, I got to stop competing with who I used to be. I need to do. Right. But old. So good. It's so good. I mean, some scattered thoughts on this movie.

Okay? You guys all saw it together. Did you have a good time? Great. Can I just set the scene really quickly? I would like you to set the scene if I wasn't there.

I was asleep because I go to sleep at 9.30. We saw 10.30. Yeah, Ben Griffin and I went to a late screening of Old on Friday night, which... In Times Square.

In Times Square. Yeah. I mean... In the city that never sleeps. The streets are filled with ATVs. screening of old on friday night uh which in times square in times square yeah i mean in the city that never sleep the the streets are filled with atvs they they they were truly we literally i i go up to ben i say hi ben age the symphony of dirt dirt bikes ben his eyes grow wide he he his mouth just well because they're doing the thing where they fucking put it on the back tires and shit. That shit fucking rules. It was an amazing prelude. It was even better than Maria Menoudos

prepping us for a movie. We see the movie. We have a great time. And I think, I can't say, I don't think the three of us have spent much time in Times Square in the last 20 months. So even that is kind of mood setting. Yes. But I was pushing like, I think we should go to Times Square.

And opening that Times Square is kind of who you want to see an M. Night movie with. I've seen bad ones and I've seen good ones in Times Square. That was my big question. How was the crowd? Great question. Well, I would argue that maybe we were the only people who were watching the movie. We walk in. They're like nodding in understanding.

Two people in the theater, right? Where they're like five minutes before the movie starts. And we all kind of go like, oh, I'm night. People fill in. It's not a sold out screening, but people fill in. There was a woman who was sitting next to me. I thought she was. There was a couple at the end of our row.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure when we were staying there after the credits talking, I'm pretty sure I saw her giving him a blowjob. A full blowjob. Interesting. Not a hand. Yeah. And I tried to tell you guys and you guys were, I guess you were.

You were too amped up about it. You were too amped up. The beach made them out old. I'm like, you guys, we should leave. I was going to say it seemed like she was watching the movie, but I guess. Well, maybe there was enough because they were at the very end of our row. Maybe there was a woman in the I think there was a woman. There was a lady who was like in the middle.

That's what I was talking about. No, there was another couple that were having a good time watching. The old lady was like the one sitting closest to me. Old lady. And then there was like a rowdy group of teenagers, like 15 of them, which is what I would expect at an M Night Shyamalan screening on a Friday. I would expect that was 90% of the audience. There was one big group. They were sitting like

five rows behind us and 30 minutes in they moved like five rows ahead of us. Well, some of them did. Yes. There was beef going down. You love when that happens at a multiplex. They were joking about beating each other up. It was clearly a joke but then they also sort of started doing it,

but they were laughing while they were doing it. Yeah, it never felt like it was a threatening situation. Sure, sure, sure. But there was like a constant soundtrack of conversation happening during the movie. Do you remember the thing you said to me? Because if you don't, I'd like to quote it directly, which I think you put it perfectly,

about the experience of watching the movie with these young men. No, you do it. You said this movie is... My memory is really bad. I don't know what's up. This movie is so good. M. Night so thoroughly has us

in the palm of his hands that even a bunch of teenagers shouting suck my dick every 10 minutes couldn't distract you from the work he was doing. Like, it was engrossing. Like, M. Night's back in the zone enough because some of M. Night's films

that would have broken the spell right oh yeah and then what I added on to that was at some points in the movie when something weird was happening

or something quiet was happening or there was a pause they would make a fart noise or do something stupid right that would kind of work against the energy

of the movie right to Ben's point I don't think it actually disrupted I think we were so in on it that it wasn't breaking the spell that having been said the thing that I found very satisfying was these

guys absolutely coming into the screening with their own shit trying to be bigger than this movie above and all that there were as many moments where the movie got quiet and it was pin drop silent and I was like you fuckers think you're clowning on this movie but he's got you it's kind of yeah right then the next scene would go like whatever but it's like no you fuckers think you're clowning on this movie, but he's got you. It's kind of got you. And then the next scene would go like, whatever. But it's like, no, he had you there for a couple minutes. He really had you there. It almost started to feel forced because the movie's momentum, it's going so fast that I think earlier in the showing,

they were doing that. And I feel like even towards the end, it became really less frequent. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Now, look, there are look there people hate this movie they think it's fucking stupid uh it's america you're a telltale opinion yes but i do think this is one of those movies where it's not like the thing that i feel like i'm not used to get dinged for where it's like oh my god amazing premise and then halfway through take some catastrophic turn and the thing goes off the rails. Right. I have found that the people who don't like this movie don't like it from the beginning and they're like

this is boring, it's ridiculous, it gets more ridiculous. Or you're fucking on his wavelength and then it just builds and builds and builds and builds. I don't know anyone who liked this movie and then it lost them. Agree with that. People who don't like the movie, right we're not, it's not like they were like,

but I've seen complaints about the ending. Absolutely. I don't love the ending. Hmm. I love. You don't know how the beach makes you old?

No, I love how the beach, I love the reveal of the pharmaceutical company or whatever that is. Yeah. Doing the human experimentation.

Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. You shouldn't have listened to this episode. go see Old. Old. It's about a beach that makes you old.

I did not. I wish that we sat in the discomfort of that moral quandary longer. And we discussed this as we were leaving. And Griffin, you had a good argument that maybe the movie does. That it has a bit of a the end of the graduate sort of ending

with the two kids who are adults on the helicopter going back to face the real world not really knowing what's going to happen and how they're going to deal with their new bodies and their new lives right i think it is one of his better twists if you just look at the reveal of the pharmaceutical studies right and then the question, what is the right note to end on in the aftermath of that reveal? No, no, no. The question is, what if a beach made you old? Well, of course. And my second question, my follow-up question is, what is the right note to end on in the aftermath of that reveal? Right. And Marie, your immediate take was like, I'd kind of like it if they die in the coral, you cut to the study, and then that's sort of this very bleak,

jarring ending right rather than giving them a victory and what i said is i'm still kind of chewing on the ending i don't know where i land totally i did dislike it but i'm trying to figure out like which ending i think leaves you with the most interesting thoughts my argument was yes the sort of helicopter thing of like hey what the fuck is their lives right what are they gonna do are they gonna like get jobs ends on this joke of like how do you think your aunt would respond if her six-year-old nephew was a 50 year old or whatever right whatever weird we should have done in july joke this movie ends on right but the other thing i kind of like about it is like you have this study those scenes are played very straight right it's this very interesting

moral quandary of just like trolley car problem so what if they let 10 people die on the beach if you're actually curing diseases forever that's a difficult question is it fucking worth it all this sort of stuff it's a good kind of twilight zone like it's twilight zoning but again the whole shamalan thing we're like who are the real monsters yes but also there's a little bit of a sort of like someone got hit in the head in the middle of writing the script, because I'm also like, wait a second! Wait a second! Why are they all on the beach at the same time? Can't we just do one at a time? There's so many

problems with your stupid experiment. But I don't care about that. Yeah, this is the other thing. Because they have to be old on the beach. When we did Shyamalan originally, I had not really become a Twilight Zone fan. And since then, I've watched most of them. And not only that, it's been a show I go to a lot, especially when I'm in stressful periods of my life.

It's like a comfort food show I rewatch and all of that. And there's something about the style of that show that very few people have been able to replicate or translate or carry over into anything else, including the many attempts at trying to modernize the Twilight Zone, right? Mm-hmm. And it is that, like, it is not a subtle show at all. No. It is a very theatrical show in terms of performance,

in terms of direction. It's a real showcase for both. And it's got big fucking ideas, but there's something about the fact the worst season of Twilight Zone is the one where they were like, what if it's an hour? And they all become laborious.

Right, right, right. When they're fucking 25 minutes long, they're not subtle, but there's something about the economy and the impact of the density of what they're doing that you forgive the cartoonishness in certain things, right? The bonk on the head feeling because it's like, look, we got to set these characters up in three pages because then the setup the reverse needs to happen on page six and then there has to be the status quo for 10 pages so we can come with the ultimate reveal or the twist or whatever it is and he actually has made like a twilight zone movie that i think sustains that stuff for two hours which is 108 minutes right which is which is pretty fucking wild and that ending feels like that to me too, where a lot of those Twilight Zone endings, it just sort of goes

somewhere else. You have an ending that feels like an epilogue to something else. You go to a different location, you reveal different characters, your perception of the thing was wrong, you go to a different scene, and it's just like, here's its own little capsule story that reframes what you watched before. There's something I like about the starkness of just ending with

that, right? Does it really make sense? No. There's something I like about the starkness of just ending with that. Right? Does it really make sense? No. David, as you said, the organizational thing makes no fucking sense. But there's a point he's trying to make. And he's trying to make it. I don't care. That's my whole thing.

I just love the metaphor. I don't care. The metaphor is just so rich. Yes. And, like, this movie is so sad and beautiful. Agreed. It's so sad. It's so visually adventurous for him,

I would say. I agree. I want to make this one final point before we get into that. What I do like about the ending, aside from just

the weirdness of what's their fucking life now, right, and you've already introduced the question of the morality of shutting down the thing.

I like that the ending feels like it might be a little bit tongue-in-cheek where it's like, look, they got the cops. They took them down as triumphant. They're fucking Jurassic Park helicoptering home. The music is swelling.

They're enjoying each other. And it's like they might be the villains. The two kids might be the villains here. I don't know if they're the villains. Well, what what in the name of the greater good is more the villains you know what i'm saying that they might have actually stopped something i like the question i'm not saying i think they are i like the question sure i've been thinking about this in this conversation while we're having this conversation i'm trying to think

of the bigger picture m night what is he trying to say? Politically, et cetera, et cetera. I've had a lot of climate change anxiety recently. This is a movie about raising your children during climate change. This is a movie about, you know,

maybe it's okay if you're old right now, if you've already lived half your life. Yeah. And, you know, you're,

it's okay that we're scientifically experimenting on you and you've already had a nice, you've, you're, it's okay that we're scientifically experimenting on you. And you've already had a nice, you've already went to prom. And had your first kiss. And you already had those memories. You were able to become a parent. I think to zoom out, it's a movie about, like, what do you do when we're maybe 15 years away from a complete collapse?

The moon is wobbling. Right. Like, everything's a fucking. I'm not afraid. I'm sorry, what's up? I'm not afraid of the wobbling. The moon is wobbling? Have you not heard about this, Ben? The moon is wobbling. Right, like everything's a fucking... I'm sorry, what's up? I'm not afraid of the wobbling. The moon is wobbling? Have you not heard about this, Ben? The moon is wobbling. It's gonna wobble for a little bit

and so the tides are gonna be... It's gonna wobble? The tides are gonna be a little saucy for 10 to 15 years. What the fuck? It's wobbling a little bit. How did it get loose? Well, I don't know. Moose was on the loose. Moose was on the loose. He just lost the moon.

He wobbled the moon. Yeah. He gave it a stern look. What are you going to do? Sometimes moons wobble, okay? Well, but these are the things that M. Night's fucking reckoning with. I mean, you know, the happening is also about what we're doing to the environment. We're making the environment angry.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's something that maybe gets put on the back burner with his work as a whole because people get so focused on the twists. But I think he is kind of grappling with big issues in a lot of his films. And this movie is existential. Like he's,

It's very, He also, you know, a theme that he returns to a lot is like the dignity of children. And like they're... They haven't been corrupted. Right. Well, they haven't been corrupted,

but also the fact that, you know, you should speak to them on their level, understand their experiences and what they're going through. And, you know, you shouldn't dismiss them. Yeah, no. Kids are the heroes of what?

Like Wide Awake, Sixth Sense, The Visit. Signs, arguably. Signs, absolutely. I mean, Unbreak visit signs I mean unfortunately I'm breaking you know such a big part obviously visit I mean that one kid is annoying but it's about the kids recognizing that something's

bad and no one listening to them even Taylor joy you could argue yeah right I mean this is the thing I have not fully formulated my take on this, but I'm working on it. Because like, you and I were talking about this, David. I hadn't seen the movie yet.

You were sort of talking about the complaints people have, right? And when people were- You mean like dialogue, things like that. People were like, how is it possible he still hasn't figured out how to write dialogue? To which I say,

that's how he writes dialogue. You can dislike it, but to say, like, he fundamentally doesn't know how to do it is like, what I said to you was, it's like pinging fucking Douglas Sirk for not being naturalistic. I'm just like, can you dislike it or can I get mad at you and tell you to shut the fuck up if you don't like his dialogue? It's a taste. I mean, look, maybe it's cilantro, right? and it fucking hits your tongue differently he is kind of the cilantro but he knows what he's doing i can't stand when people talk about dialogue with like well people don't talk like that who gives a shit they don't go to beaches that make you old either you person yeah here's another thing sorry people are fucking weird okay sure like i spend this last weekend in new jersey doing

meet and greet shit for the he-man show right for masters of the universe humble brag i bring this up only because i spent 20 months being largely in seclusion only in the last like six weeks i've been seeing people again right but even still i'm not going out into public i'm not meeting a lot of strangers whatever and i had two days where i was like meeting a lot of people in very short conversations guess what there was no standardized way that people talk and i say this because i went through a fucking weekend of having to readjust my brain every five minutes to a very different way that every single person communicated the other thing about it is like i think his dialogue is very on the nose um when people say things it's often serving a plot utility they're saying things that will be picked up later or giving you you have the weird quirk

of the kid who asks everyone's occupation this is my point i'm gonna come back to but honestly kids are fucking weird and they do that perfect fucking sense to me okay so now now could vicky creeps have maybe said that she worked in a museum a couple last times? Sure. Maybe. She works at a museum. She probably works for the University of Pennsylvania's Archaeology Museum. Yeah, that's true.

That's a good point. They're from, of course, Marie texts me seconds out of the movie. Is there a Philly connection? I'm like, don't worry. They're from Philly. I mean, a couple weeks ago, I tweeted something that was like, I swear to God, if like, Guile and Vicky are not Penn professors

on vacation, I don't know what I'm going to fucking do. I was half expecting the twist to be that the beach was in Philly the whole time. I mean,

that they faked the plane flight. The shores of the school river. It was like a Truman Show style trip where they fell asleep and then they rearranged everything around them. Wait, why is that?

You can't go in the water. The water. You can't go in the water. That's the tell. No, but this was the thing I was sort of talking through with Maria, right? And I haven't? You can't go in the water. The water. You can't go in the water. That's the tell. No, but this was the thing I was sort of talking through with Maria, right? And I haven't,

I haven't totally come to it. But like, he at this point has now had several movies where you have characters who are like weird computer brain people

who are obsessed with like stats and facts and numbers. You've got Wahlberg who's always talking math. No, Leguizamo's the one who's like crazy about it was almost the one sorry i forgot right but when people are like here's the thing i know very well even the way that like unbreakable opens with like here's how many pages of comic books are printed per year right this weird like very didactic mr glass's whole personality is right that the way you talk

and this you have the kid who's like I need to ask everyone what their profession is but you also have Gael being the actual who has to run through the stats 96% chance

that if you're dying on a beach you have heat stroke or you know he's like doing that you have a doctor and a nurse and like a fucking

museum master and all this sort of stuff right I do think especially with how much his movies are about children there is this I want to say sort of stuff, right? I do think, especially with how much his movies are about children, there is this,

I want to say sort of like, there is a point of view to that. It is not arbitrary. Even look at like, Jeffrey writes like, I don't know, I understand puzzles. Puzzles are the only thing

I understand. There are all these people who are like caught up in these codes and these languages and these like knowledge bases that they can understand, right? And I think it's all about people trying to make sense of a nonsensical world especially in movies that are increasingly about absolutely bonkers bananas things happen to quote

unquote everyday people right because he doesn't make movies about extraordinary heroes he makes movies about people who somehow have these things foisted upon them. Right. And I think there is that element of just like, it's about people contending with a world that doesn't make sense. And it doesn't make sense even before the nonsensical thing happens. I also think he is somewhat still confounded by the way that adults talk to each other. And I don't think he is failing to write adults correctly because he doesn't get it. I think he is sort of saying like, it is weird that grown-ups just go like, oh yeah, and the Dow

and this and that and the numbers and the da-da-da-da-da. And that he understands more kids who are able to just sort of go like, who are you? What do you do for a living? Why am I sad? You know, who aren't obfuscating their language and all these weird sorts of codes

and secrets and shit like that. To go like full M. Night Autorism, like just a little bit of background. Because at this point it's such a pattern

that there has to be, whether it's conscious or not, something larger going on. He is, he was born in India. Yes. He is an immigrant. Yes.

His parents are immigrants. His parents are doctors. He's not Catholic. He goes to Catholic school for 10 India. Yes. He is an immigrant. Yes. His parents are immigrants. His parents are doctors. He's not Catholic. He goes to Catholic school for 10 years. He's indoctrinated an entire- Well, Catholic and then Episcopalian, but still- Sure. Christian.

Yes. The Catholic stuff is especially, having gone to the same school Knight went to, we had one girl in the school who was Jewish, and her bat mitzvah became stuff of legend because it was so foreign to us. So, you know, it was not a very diverse place and he obviously, it was very white. He's got an odd outsider-insider status. Yes.

And I think that is, you know, a theme that is, he chooses to best express through children yes right and his movies are always almost always about to one degree or another people grappling with their belief systems right and sometimes it is overtly religious

and sometimes it is a much smaller kind of thing it could be tied to a relationship or sense of self or whatever it is but that is deliberate and i i watched uh our bud buddy jordan fish sent me he did one of those i get confused which magazine does which fucking youtube series but it's the one where it's like the most searched the auto complete right it's wired or gq or whatever they're all content right anyway and they were asking him

some question about like his his sense of religion and faith and all that sort of stuff. And he said, it's about belief systems for me. I wish he could have made Life of Pi. We talked about that. I would have loved to have seen his Life of Pi. Yeah. I like Ang's version. At that point in time, it was like, maybe don't let him do this.

And now you're like, would have been cool. He kind of did feel like a movie. It's perfect material for him. But he was so right he was so lost at that point there was also do you remember that pre-split it was announced that he was like gonna do his smaller drama and it was like a faith-based bruce willis drama yeah i remember that not like a not like a fucking uh not a fire left behind faith-based drama but it was like it sounded more like a return to one or like a wide awake sort drama but it was like it sounded more like pain with anger

like a wide awake sort of thing it was like a movie about like a guy having like a mental breakdown going on like a walkabout to find

himself again I'm not sure I want him to make that I don't know either I think he does he doesn't get to be mischievous in a movie like that

I do think he works best in genre that sounds a little po-faced for him exactly he understands that about himself now. Yes. And,

but at the same time, it's like lady in the water. He strayed too far into po-face happening. He strayed too far into trying to just make an R rated movie. Right. It was kind of like, you know, like whatever the,

the, the, the happening, the marketing doomed it as much as any. Well, no, the movie's bad, but whatever.

Yeah. I need to rewatch parts of parts of it. are sequences that are very that are incredible harassing but that's always been true it's also one of these things where it's like i'd love to rush the happening and like it more i don't know if you ever can fully get past the fundamental miscasting of those two actors it's like such a it's yes yeah um so uh there was a topic on the blankies reddit the other day that was the question well no yes but no uh is this a bit do these guys really like oh is this another sully thing and was the sully thing like su like Sully. Yes. People don't get it. And as we said, if M. Night is the cilantro of filmmakers, I'm sorry he tastes like

soap to you. Right. But to us, the way that I commented in that thread and I tried to explain it is like, he makes decisions that call attention to themselves. Right. Which some people hate. Which some people hate. But hey, can we just like talk a bit

about his camera choices? I want to talk about a lot. The most exciting thing about this. And this is maybe his most adventurous film in that sense. It's brilliant.

It's brilliant. Everything he does for the camera is just so brilliant. There's also shit in this that I don't even understand yet, but I'm so fascinated by the fact that he's doing shit

I've never seen before and that he's clearly going for something that I want to watch it eight more times to try to parse. I mean, it's so good. It sounds so crazy. I read, I think it was Creeps, some interview with her where she was talking about how complicated all the camera moves were. It must have been

very, very annoying to make. Because he's like bobbing and weaving so much. You know, the camera, it feels very deliberately like a pendulum, which would be in a clock because we're all tick fucking tock. Weird rhythms, repetitions. Yes. We get it set up when our, you know,

little family checks into their hotel suite. And we, it is, it appears to be a single unbroken shot of mom and dad kind of getting used to their surroundings discussing their trip while the kids disappear into the background. Yeah.

As the camera continues its unbroken shot the kids then reenter and they're wearing bathing suits. And it already is preparing the audience to expect that

once we get this kind of shot something is going to change. Right. Things, people are going to change. He's always about lulling you into weird sort of like patterns and rhythms again, you know, but setting this weird like sense of unease,

even in the quote unquote normal scenes in the movie. It's so much better than a jump. It's this sort of like thing where you're like, when's it going to cut? Something's going to happen. You know, like that that why is that person framed only in the corner why are they gonna people like grow bigger than the frame which i love like he like moves in on them where you're like wait why is that person's head cut off right is this masked wrong and then you're like no like they're just like they're growing outside of the frame. Right, right. But he's it's just it's a very deliberate building sense of unease

and also setting up certain visual games that he will repeat later, training you to understand how to process some of the images that he's going to repeat. Beyond that, on just a even more simple, basic as fuck level, the movie starts and like 90 seconds in, I'm like, right. the movie starts and like 90 seconds in I'm like right it is so fucking good to watch any movie let alone a major American studio film getting a wide release where there is no arbitrary coverage and you can fucking feel that there's not a single shot in this movie that feels like an ad going hey you might want to have this just for editing options every single shot in that movie is so deliberately thought out that even the ones I don't get,

I want to spend time trying to figure out why he picked that. But it also it goes back to, you know, how he said that he had to plan everything meticulously because they couldn't shoot yet. And he did none of it, obviously. No, he did none of the normal, easy way that anyone else would choose. Think about it and make weird choices and storyboard. Yeah. And then get there and shoot it.

There's that moment when they're on the beach and it's, I guess, the kids who become Mackenzie and Wolf and Scanlan, right? Do you remember when you and I turned to each other and went, what is he doing? Where it's like this very fast moving, it feels handheld, but

CGI assisted where it's like it's focused in on one kid and it's tracking with his body and then when another kid runs by suddenly the whole rhythm of it changes. Is this when they're playing freeze tag? Yes. Because that sequence is incredible.

And I was just like I don't know what he's doing on a technical or thematic level and it's so cool. It's just supposed to freak us out. Like what is going on with these kids? I also don't know how he did that.

I don't even know how to describe that. I've never seen anything. How does he articulate what he wants to his DP? Right. I have no idea. No idea.

No idea. It's fucking cool. But beyond that, how cool to see a fucking guy at this point in his career, 20 films in, who is still this playful, who is still pushing himself.

Mischievous. Who is still trying shit. This little fucking imp. Yeah. Ben, what'd you think of old? I feel like Ben needs to jump in here. Well, no. I mean, I'll find my moments.

I was going to say, though. Have you been hearing us okay, Ben, as we've been talking about this movie? It's been hard to hear a little bit. And I've been kind of getting sleepy, but it's okay. Stay away. So I was going to say a shot I really liked is um uh rufus how do you

say his last name um there's like the point in the movie where he's like really fucking lost it yeah and to me there's like this really close-up shot of his face and i was like space madness from fucking rendon stimpy Like it is just like, Ben turned and said that to me. He said, this is literally space madness. Ren and Stimpy. He totally just took on that.

Like, kind of like, uh, like I have really fucking lost it. Yeah. But then the visual, like I think really was telling you that too. It was great.

Yeah. It was great. Yeah. Yeah. All the weird, like direct closeups contrasted with things like you're saying, David, where people are like cut out of frame or it's a four shot and all four people are at the corners and you're like, are they going to step more into focus or not?

They're also it seems like, you know, we all know that he loves Spielberg and Spielberg is the kind of like North star in his career as a filmmaker and the king of like the unshowy exactly the yes and the if we want to talk about other movies that take place on a beach where something horrible happens it this old is pretty much him experimenting with the idea of oh I can't show the shark. Right. And there are, it seems like he is having so much fun not showing the shark.

Here's another thing. It's like the most fucking universal thing to build a horror movie around. Right. Find a single person who is not in some way haunted by the idea of that. If not even literally getting old, losing your faculties.

Getting sick. Having something grow inside of you. Getting cut open. haunted by the idea of that if not even literally getting old losing your faculties getting sick having something grow inside of you getting cut open and it is truly like it's it's the silent killer right it is a thing that has no physical form that has no reason that is unavailable but also his little tweaks you know the rust the tumor right yeah the ways he finds clever. Well, you love logic. Yeah, of course. I'd say it's as a backbone, as a spine of the thing. I remember, like, I don't know if you guys remember this, but Synecdoche, New York

was originally announced as Spike Jones and Charlie Kaufman are going to make a horror movie together. Absolutely. They go to Sony. It's about dying. They didn't have a premise at first. They went to Sony and they were like, what if we tried to do a horror movie? And Sony was like, money in the bank. And then Charlie Kaufman

comes back with this script and Spike Jonze is like, I don't know if Sony is going to green light this as a horror movie. And he was like, well, getting old is the thing that scares me

so that's what I wrote about. And they were like, cool, you go off and make that. We cannot release this in 2,000 screens, right? Right, right. Which I love that movie and I find that movie very horrifying in certain ways but this feels like but then he's figuring out how to make

a movie about aging that actually plays like a somewhat conventional horror movie yeah well also right synecdoche is also it's like about decay and fear of disease and fear of your body and like but this gets at a lot of those things in a more visceral thing that's so good about this synecdoche is slow synecdoche is internal i love that movie but this movie every like immediately you start to feel the tension of like time passing yes where you're just so anxious of like they're not fucking understanding what's happening to them they're letting this time with themselves slip away and i'm not thinking like they're gonna figure it out sure and get off beach. I know they can't get off the beach. Pretty early on, it feels like they're pretty fucking doomed, right? That's what being alive is like.

I agree. That's why it's such a good metaphor. Can I ask a question of you, David? You are the only one of us here on Mike who has a child. Got a boss, baby. Wait, do I have three kids I have to pick up from school? Ben, why are you drinking Metamucil? I just need the fiber.

Yeah, that's my Metamucil. Give it back. Oh, sorry. Here you go. I have a kid. That's true. I have a child. Navi?

Is that her name? Sure, yeah. Forkat. We've gone through a couple. Untitled Marvel event film 2021. We've gone through a couple different bits at this point. So, the... Grafina Benducer.

Go on. So the... Grafina Benducer. The scene where Eliza Scanlon has to give birth. I sobbed at this scene. I cried, if that's what you're asking. Yeah, fucking horrifying. But I also think it's really one of his loveliest little scenes that he's done since like The Sixth Sense.

The Sixth Sense is a very lovely movie. I was there watching you from the back of the stage at your recital and i'm proud of you every day you know that's just so good i should have won tony colette the oscar and hailey jules right um but um this like but like the whole thing look old's about people who are on a beat we're not going to go through the plot i guess it makes people the beach makes you the plot is they get a hold of various people on the beach they get old in various ways. But like, the whiplash of,

you know, when they're in the tent together. Oh my God. And they're talking about how they're, you know, they feel their brains getting old in the same way that their bodies are getting old. And he does this weird coverage

where both of their shots are over the other person's shoulder. You're only seeing the sliver of the eye. You haven't seen them in this new age stage. But it's also so intimate. It immediately telegraphs that they are teenagers who are going to fuck. But you're watching and you're like,

so is this him, you know, kind of winking at this and he's going to let it lie after that? Or is he... Is this him setting up a scene that's going to be... And then when she's pregnant, I mean, I was just hackling with, like, right, with kind of with despair. I'm like, I can't believe, I was just hackling with like, right. With kind of with despair. I'm like, I can't believe he did it.

Of course he's doing it. You have to do it. He goes that hard. He's the only guy who goes that hard. It's revealed in the trailer that there's an unexpected pregnancy. I don't think I knew that. I knew that was coming. I did not know how it would be addressed in the film.

And like the lines were like, and again, and the way his camera is like, you know, spinning around and you hear like the dad in the background being like, that's how you make a baby. And he's like, I thought you had to do it like a lot.

You know, this is the thing that's wild. But no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, gives birth and there's the body horror of all you know of her body growing so fast what did they say about the baby that it's like because it's so fast that they didn't engage with the baby so it just it dies because like you need to feed a baby constantly like and like you can't like it ages too quickly like when it's six months and five minutes but like and then so like you're

just and by the way love that there were baby bones and then they buried the sound effect of the dry bone well so that's the thing but yeah they buried them. The sound effect of the dry bone. Oh, my God. Yes. You're sort of riding on the high of all that. You're like, Jesus. And then there's that little scene with the two of them where they bury the bones. And I was like, this is the best thing he's done in so long. It was so profound.

Him yelling at his dad, like, I'm going to marry her. We're never going to get divorced. So fucking good. So funny. I mean, like, and tying that line back to that really early scene with the kid. What's the kid, the friend? Idlib. Idlib.

Cool. Also obsessed with codes, puzzles. Yeah, likes puzzles and all that. But, like, you know, back when Alex Wolfe is little Wolfe, little Trent, and he's talking to this kid, and this kid's like, you know, I don't have any friends. We're not going to be friends. He's like, we'll be friends.

And, like, then we'll be older. Yeah., we'll, we'll get mortgages or whatever. There's that line he has about mortgages. Right. Trying to understand the language of adults. Exactly. And like that, right. That you, the twinning that line with his later line where he's like, right, I'm going to do this right.

Even if I'm on a beach that makes you old and I'm going to be dead in a day, I'm not going to divorce my wife, my beach right okay in our bone i'm not gonna be a crappy adult like you i know how to be an adult and just that he can throw that in in this mias this like chaotic scene and we're gonna move on quickly and there's gonna be more stuff and have it hit is so good this is also the the the how do i even say this you you have a moment like that that is profoundly sad ridiculous and scary at the same time and i think for some people they go like pick a lane you cannot at the same time ask me to take something serious emotionally feel the stakes of it and have it be this over the top and for the four of us we happen to be

delighted by that so delighted it's operatic yes it is it feels like a play like at times and then like

at the end I mean the truly beautiful ending not the end end but you know when Gael and Vicky are on the beach and they're old

and they're not and I think it's good that they're not like you know wrinkly I think they're the right amount of old I think they did the wrinkling really good that they're not like you know wrinkly i think they're the right amount of old i think they did the the wrinkling really well right but they're not like but it's also crow at the end of a beautiful vine it's so subtle and natural like dried apple skin on her eyes and

shit and like he's got you know he's like what were we talking about they show a hand at one point and the hand is like an old person's hand and like i think they are holding hands or something and i love oh god his little fucking tricks of just bring an old person's hand and like i think they are holding hands or something and i love his little fucking tricks of just bring an old person on set and shoot a hand and that's worth better more than any fucking special effect that's like wait so he dies and then she gets up and walks into the water and walks back and then she dies i've been thinking about that for since i saw the movie it's such a simple little move that is not explained and everyone fucking criticizes him explaining everything i know but like there's like little stuff like that

that like haunts you this movie is so it's so good it's so good it's so good uh uh like two two performance talked about mid-sized sedan god such a good name it's probably one of the funniest name like our joke about a name of a rapper that i feel like i've heard ever what's his real name trevor derrick brendan i think it's brandon or something is it my name is brandon my parents are like doctors i don't know that i see very well uh aaron pierre he's english but he's got he's got a great look, beautiful eyes. Wait, how would you know that? It's like Wikipedia. That line in the movie, Kilt. We all laugh. I feel like that really went over so well as a name.

People were also criticizing the name Midsize Dan as being too ridiculous, but I would like to remind everyone that there is currently a rapper right now named Pooh Shiesty. That's good. So, you know... Midsize that's good so what you know midsize sedan's good maybe it's on the other end of the spectrum but it's honestly like anything goes yeah it's

fucking anything goes fucking it also just feels also like that perfect m night dad joke energy too where he's like well what's this guy's name midsize like it all it works on every level right it feels like gael garcia bernal's character should be saying what's this guy's name? Midsize Sedan. It works on every level. Right. It feels like Gael Garcia Bernal's character should be saying, what's his name? Midsize Sedan. And they're like, no, his name is like Little Master P.

Okay. So now, that was one part of the movie where I feel like I was getting a little caught up on trying to figure out the logic of him and then the body.

Right. Why did she die and he didn't? But it seemed like her sickness was worse. Yeah. She had MS, he body. Right. Sure. Why did she die and he didn't? But it seemed like her sickness was worse. Yeah. She had MS, he says. Right. And I guess she just, whatever.

They got to the beach early and something happened. At that point in the movie. She drowned. She drowned. She's not like dead of old age. At that point in the movie, I think I, I thought the aging was connected to the water. So I went like, oh, she died sooner and faster because she was swimming in it.

Because I was also like, well, the kids are growing up faster. They were in the water. The adults were not. So I didn't question at the time because I thought I was ahead of the reveal. But then, of course, it's the rocks. It's all about the rocks. It's about those damn magnet rocks.

Those damn magnet rocks. But to go through everyone in this cast. So you got Kyle Garcia-Brunel. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with him. He's an actuar. I always like watching him on screen. Oh, so absolutely.

Right? He's a calming presence for me. Quietly one of my favorite guys. I always underrate him until I watch him. Just absolutely outrageously attractive. Yeah. To this day. And let's say a short king.

Like I always love watching him on screen and being like, he's 5'6 and not hiding it. I understand the decision to not have their hair age. Sure. Because they explain that as like, oh, hair's dead.

Same reason your nails aren't growing. I'd love to see a little salt. He's going to look so good. I know. He's going to look so good. He's aged so well already yeah um you've got vicky creeps as his wife um who has a tumor so that's her thing they both you know every family

has a problem right but it also we don't know whether or not her tumor is she says it's benign so i had sorry getting a little you know t, TMI about Marie's medical history. Please. I had a uterine fibroid. Sure. A problem many people are our age. Which is a common problem that people with uteruses have. It went from being nothing to the size of an orange within like three months. And they had to get it out.

And I had to have. In this movie, it happens in two minutes. Well, right. It is absolutely terrifying but it's one of those things where like oh you don't think it's that big of a deal because the tumor is going to grow so slowly it won't matter

and then it fucking explodes and it's so that's the thing we're not supposed to totally know if like it was always going to be life-threatening or it's just like I think I think it would have been I think the beach is accelerating, I think, I think it would have been, I think the beach is accelerating it. I think the fact that she died of,

yeah. The fact that she like died of old age on like on beach time meant that it had, it was not like a cancer that had spread to the rest of her body. It gets so big because no one's looking at it. They never tie it to a larger. No. I hate the rules of it though, where they so big because no one's looking at it. They never tie it to a larger... I hate the rules of it, though, where they have to hold it.

They don't show it! Such a good elevation. I want to say the big set pieces of this movie are the concept of what he has dramatically set up is so deeply unnerving that you are on the edge of your seat right where

you're like and you think you understand cannot believe he's going to do this there's no way he's going to do this and you're sitting and you're squirming and you're recoiling and he shows you fucking nothing he multiple times in the movie right he shows you fucking nothing yeah i mean you get the one shot when you see the thing pulled out right but it is so telling that there's like the shot where we're just like, oh, fuck, shit, fuck. Where he makes the second incision. They put their fingers in and then he cuts away immediately. You don't see them holding it. It is the shot that's like the four heads poking out of the corners of the frame looking in as he does the thing.

Pretty reserved sound effects considering what he's showing on screen and everyone in the theater is going like, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Yeah, it's so squirmy. You're not seeing anything. You're seeing slivers of heads from her perspective. I mean, I think impromptu surgery

is a top make your audience, you know, unsettled thing. But he knows just putting the idea in their head is going to be scarier than anything I show. Similar, never showing the baby. Never showing the baby. Except for the little dusty butt. Right, when Rufus Sewell and Ben

Sheard, when Rufus Sewell is going stab crazy at the end of the movie, you set up the device that Gael is largely blind. It's very dark. So you're not seeing anything graphic. The, well, so there's... Versus happening where he's like, is that what I'm supposed to do? Am I supposed to be... Right,

is it supposed to be R-rated? Right. Okay, so Rufus Sewell is that what I'm supposed to do? Am I supposed to be right? Is it supposed to be right? R rated. But OK, so Rufus Sewell, an actor I love. I do, too, who I've seen on stage do all kinds of wonderful things. But I do feel like in movies tends to do like two things. He plays jerks. He plays like stuffy Brits. Right. Right.

But he is so much fun in this movie. Yeah. Playing a doctor who is crazy. Yeah. I mean, he's schizophrenic. They do say that later in this movie yeah uh playing a doctor who is crazy yeah i mean he's schizophrenic they do say that later in the movie it took me a while to figure out what was going on when he did the schizophrenic they do say yeah i thought he was just like it was like that's what i thought too yeah because when the brando nicholson thing happened for the first time marie was like what was that i went like it has to be senile right they're setting up i initially thought that it would be some early dementia or whatever but no but no because there's

the scene there's the the doctor later right it's like maybe we should keep the the people with away from physical health well i also thought maybe that there was like a racism element too but it's just what it is it's filtered through his his nasty side paranoid right right but so okay but yes it's like not arbitrary who he targets as a threat

in that movie you have Abby Lee oh doing incredible work as Crystal oh my god who's got brittle bones oh god

that's the other fucking thing because that's because I was going to say Griff yes this movie that's the most graphic that's the other fucking because that's because i was gonna say yes that's that's the most graphic that's the most bloody but that's the visual right so i would watch an entire movie about her character dealing with the horror of aging as a young beautiful woman i love the way the movie has her vanish for stretches. And then when she's, but she's like, don't look at me. Like, I love that.

It is. It is. So it is so grotesque. And you can just tell that he, that Shyamalan is just like reveling in the grotesqueness of it. And it doesn't, it didn't feel like it was necessarily misogynistic to me. No, no.

Because I think the actress understood the role that she was playing and I felt so bad for her. She's incredibly sympathetic. I mean, there is that sort of like, right, it has that kind of like fairy tale, like, oh, she was too vain and look how she paid the price.

But I think there's a counterpoint to the Rufus Sewell thing, right? That they represent a certain kind of very appearance-based status of sex. Whose vanity is like that I must be the great doctor

and he's so smart? I have to protect my family, you know? But I also think to have, you know, their daughter go through this horrible thing

where she's pregnant, doesn't understand that she's pregnant, gives birth, loses the baby, and you see Abby Lee's character just completely struggle

with how to deal with it. She can't even be there in the moment when it's happening. And it is, I don't know, I found that to be like a very, I didn't, that didn't make me think less of that character. I was like, that is probably,

that is absolutely how I would react. I would be so overwhelmed and horrified. In that moment, you go, how does anyone deal with something like that? How do you survive something like that? So good. Yeah. And the reveal of her bones

and her turning into a weird spider woman in the cave is just like, is it the term grand guignol? Yes. I mean, chef's kiss. I was like, they're going to do do it and then he did it and then the little flashes just goes so fucking hard he pushes it past the point that anyone else would go this is gilding the lily this is gonna get too silly but we're there with him at that point if he had

done that 20 minutes in i think you'd be like whoa whoa whoa what's going on like once again it's almost like there's like a self-selection sort of test at the beginning where it's like, if you're this thrown off by the dialogue in the first five minutes, you're out. Right. And if you're willing to go with this, then I'm going to slowly build up to the point where she becomes a fucking noodle lady in a cave. I think that's the most visibly graphic part of the movie. Absolutely.

And, you know, like gory. No, but it's the most. He led up to it. There wasn't the part when, uh, Eliza Scanlon falls off the cliff. And I was like, Oh,

are we going to get that fucking shot in midsummer? Which gave me nightmares. No, we don't know. We don't see it. Great shot. Uh, but right.

I'm glad we don't see it. Yeah. I'm glad I would not. That seems really intense too. Yeah. Because it actually has that weird tension of like, wait, like there's a moment where you're kind of like,

she could make it. Is she, is this sort of like the beginning of the third act or whatever right just the confidence of him not cutting once she's up there only covering her from so far away where it's really hard to parse what is happening but that the obviously thing is the only time he shows you the thing fully right fully gets in the rust moment the thing which i think is great oh oh sure but that's but again sort of shrouded in darkness sort of like it doesn't go full psycho like i also think body parts rotting venom like that moment's not scary it's a little triumphant because at this point you're like totally he's become the most immediate threat on the beach yeah um you got

nikki amuka burda an actress i really like as the the psychologist what has she done before you know she's in the david copperfield movie she's in you know she's like a british theater actor i'm sure i've seen her and stuff i didn't yeah well she's in jupiter ascending not i not a movie i've only seen that movie like three times so i can't like but i think she's the captain of the ship has a more blake check thing ever been said on this show i've only seen jupiter three times uh she was in the laundromat apparently okay a movie that i saw but like that has so many characters that i can't remember like yeah but she's done a lot of tv anyway anyway she's really good my favorite the person who caused me to always disrupt a movie and go look that's ken he's good in this. It's such a good role for him, which is the sort of nervy

explainer. Yeah. He's also like the nurse and I'm here and I'm very down to earth. And the fun tension between him and Rufus Sewell where he kind of knows a little bit more. Right, right, right. I will say this. I don't cite this as a criticism, but you, Mirmi, already

calling out that you wish we got to see a little salt and pepper on Gael. Ken Lund famously rocks the gray in his hair very well, right? Has been speckled for a very long time. It's true, yeah. He shows up in this movie and it's like very dark, right? Like he's fully sort of like darkened

his hair. And I was like, oh, it's almost a natural color. They're doing this because he's going to age rapidly and get gray. I just wish I could have seen it. I like i like his gray his death is that he just swims away and tries to escape and it doesn't make you pop up his body pops up later right that's yeah her death is the epilepsy where it's like i guess the idea is like the medicine is finally not working right that's right it's worked for a very long time right right and then like yeah right if if it's that infrequent then we then you figure pretty much right just give her a nice fancy

bespoke cocktail right did you guys i mean i just never think about these things i tried i do i am kind of like mind head empty with movies like because like i as someone i left the theater with was like i'm pretty i pretty much figured out from the beginning like oh yeah they're being tested on like and i know no no i just thought it was a fucking dang ass freak watching that shit like i just thought it was somebody you can see them from right away well look we're lab rats yeah right yeah in some way or other i figured it was some sort of human experiment i didn't know to what ends but yeah yeah, once you see someone up there, you're like, oh, you know, we're watching them. They're being watched by someone in the movie. I thought it would be more of a psychological thing, like to see like more of like a Milgram sort of thing.

I was wondering if it was going to go into loss sort of like more overtly supernatural. The people who are testing them are not human. There is some larger thing at play. You know, that kind of thing rather than it being a very specific business thing. And I like the mystery of like, look, these people went on expedition.

They discovered this horrible thing and we've been able to turn it into something good. We're not going to explain why. Who fucking cares why the rocks make you old? I also think it's fun that the characters

are also trying to figure out what's next. It made me, I have not seen Escape Room. I hear it's fun that the characters are also trying to figure out what's next. I have not seen Escape Room. You can't tell me I gotta see this. I haven't seen any Escape Room movie. Maria, you gotta escape the room. This old made me think of my one time I went to an escape room. Where everyone's kind of banding together trying to come up with like, you know.

I don't know you, you don't know me. I know with real escape rooms usually you do know me only knew the one other person yeah it's like but like right let's all just like get our thinking the noodles baking yeah i also i think look that is a thing that did m night in for a while right that people went to the movie trying with the fucking okay okay i'm gonna solve it i'm gonna get ahead and i think he like it's this movie is so fucking fun yeah besides being as we said profound and sad yeah it is so fun because m night is essentially playing himself setting the stage bringing his actors and then i could they try and figure out lots of food they're trying the whole movie they are trying to figure

out his twist yeah right absolutely right so a that helps him a lot that the characters are like in on it they're like the audience but b at this point i have just succumbed to like i want to ride this out i don't want to try to fucking figure this out and i get a certain glee from every time he underlines an element going, that's something. I don't know what it is yet. And I'm not going to distract myself from staying in the emotion of the movie, trying to solve it. I would rather watch this play out and then at the end be satisfied to see what the things were. Now, can I ask though, what did we think to your point? What did we think of how he showed the characters not being able to leave?

The pressure. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That to me was like a thing where I was like. The thing where they like black out when they go. Right. I was fine with it. Sure. They essentially get like aging bends.

They can't. Right. And they explain it enough, right, where the connection to the bends, it makes sense. And I think it's like that could have not been successful very easily. Yes. If maybe you show too much or not enough. And I just think it like,

I think he really pulls it off. Yeah. Because you're essentially showing like, why can't they just leave the beach? And then they don't really show you why, but it still is like a thing where you're not getting too distracted by that. I also think it's so much

better that it's like they start trying to leave the beach and the next thing they know they're back on the beach and like fuck you know yes it's like so much better than like reaching a force field this sort of weird cut and then wake up is just like well i guess it's just fucking your stuff that felt the most overtly lost yes yes it is quite lost but that's the thing with lost too where you're like the metaphor so good i'm not sure i want right right it doesn't need to be explained yeah and then i mean lost ultimate explanation is well the island is magic and some people were just like well wait a second like you know like that's all like obviously there were many explanations with it but the the ultimate explanation was like,

look, this island's fucking magic. Okay. Yeah. And it's always been magic. And anytime anyone comes here, they try and figure out what to do with the magic. But this is also the M night thing.

Once again, I'm just, I think his confusion with other people of just like, well, nothing fucking makes sense. Why do any of us do any of these things? Why does any of this operate this way? Yeah.

Yes. Can I say something I did not like about the movie? You are allowed. Thanks. I think he is so specific with the mechanics of time while they

are on the island. Sort of like 30 minutes is a year or whatever. Which I love. I didn't think too much about it. I just trusted him with it. But then when they're swimming through the coral and it takes so fucking long. I'm tugging on.

Oh, I'm caught. And I'm like, these people, how long can you hold your breath underwater for? And I know that's like a common suspension of disbelief that, you know, it's always in movies. But it was just that the all i'm doing for the past like 90 minutes is thinking about the passage of time that that's why i wanted them to die or you just wanted that to be that yeah i just wanted to stay like just

okay i want to keep thinking about time and how time eventually kills all of us yeah and you know what's the what's the point of living if not till you know just be with the people you love right well because like he has sand castles and right he has that with creeps and bernal right which i think is so beautiful right and then so he's having his cake a little bit yeah you know by having them also escape and then but i do i think the ending is the graduate like i think that's what they're like what do we do now where it's like there's not a lot of triumph in them taking this down i agree with you like it's not even if they're not the villains made but like you know just the sort of like yeah i don't know okay that cut is so heartbreaking to uh when when they cut to the next morning and then bet Davids walks out and you're like...

I'd love to see her, by the way. Right, and it feels like the kind of thing than any other movie. You go, oh shit, they just jumped 30 years later. And it's like, well, they did and they didn't. Right, right. They did, but also this has been like one night's sleep and your brain is playing that trick of like,

oh, what's all the shit that happened off screen that I didn't see? And it's like, them sleeping for three hours like this is the brutality of just like you go to sleep you wake up and suddenly you've missed this much of your life you know which is sometimes how it fucking feels being a person especially when you are

locked up for a year and a half I mean I like the last couple of weeks I kept on having this thing where when I was like fill out forms I had to answer it as a question going like my age doesn't feel right anymore. And it's because maybe other things as well. But like fundamentally, this year and a half we lost, it feels like I should be older or I should be younger or like this number doesn't make sense to me anymore. Like, I should be older or I should be younger.

Or like, this number doesn't make sense to me anymore. And then after two or three weeks of having that internal conversation, every time I had to say my age, I realized I had been getting my age wrong. Were you saying you were too old? I was saying I was 31 and I'm 32. And I spent three weeks every time 31 came out of my mouth going, that sounds wrong, but believing that I just feel out of whack rather than that I had done the math wrong.

And the answer is that fucking year disappeared into a memory hole, what have you. But also just that disorientation of like, how old am I? What number does make sense? You know, what passage of time does make sense where there's that kind of thing of just like there's I think those two performances are really good. Sure. And they play a very specific kind of comfortable chemistry with each other, right?

Where it's like those two siblings get along. I like that M.I. doesn't have them be fucking fighting siblings, annoying bratty kid and all that sort of stuff. No, they sort of understand. They get each other's weirdness in a way or whatever. Thomas and Mackenzie and Alex Wolfe, to their credit, I think, do extraordinarily good jobs of playing children.

Right. And not making it feel creepy, not making it feel like fucking Coppola Jack. I think Thomas and Mackenzie in particular is pretty incredible that as well as Vicky Creeps playing. You know what I was thinking of is like we were watching the movie. It was like, fuck, they don't have mirrors. Yeah. Right. They don't know. They don't know what they look like. the most thing can do is look in the water basically i know abby lee looked at like a like some sort of makeup case that had a shiny surface to see

herself but they can see the other people they can't see themselves and that's like another element of how absolutely absolutely i mean yeah uh yeah, Thomas and Mackenzie plays that part so... It's so incredibly well... Mom, what's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that? Right, and not playing it like a sketch comedy version of a kid,

but really feeling like this is somehow a kid in the wrong body, right? Yeah, so the unsettledness... But when they wake up the next morning, they're playing them kind of like adults

in a way I find interesting. Like, this day has changed them so dramatically that, like, the trauma of this has pushed any childlike... adults in a way I find interesting. Like this day has changed them so dramatically that like the trauma of this has pushed any childlike innocence or energy out of their bodies. They watched a lady break all her

friggin bones in a cave. Right. Like they've gone through some shit. Exactly. But I like that they're now just playing fucking grownups and they're there on the beach and they're sort of like, well, I guess three more hours and then we're done. Right. Like everything's this resigned sadness before they solve it, and they're there on the beach and they're sort of like, well, I guess three more hours and then we're done, right? Like, everything's this resigned sadness before they solve it, before there suddenly

is a last chance. This movie had me thinking a lot about boyhood. Sure. Which... Which was shot on the beach that makes you old. It was shot on the beach that makes you old. That's a cheat. Linklater has

incredible producers who figured that out. They're doing the fucking Merrily We Roll Along in there too. And Linklater's up on the clips. He doesn't go on the clips. He finished Merrily two years ago. He's a coward. He's gonna sit on it for another 18. Well, the one guy in it got cancelled. That's why it hasn't been released yet.

Is that true? Who's that? Blake Jenner. But no, Boyhood, I saw it when it premiered at Sundance and I was like, wow, this is kind of my first experience of watching a film and

maybe seeing the world through the eyes of a parent. Like identifying with the parents for the first time. If you had a boss baby. If I had a boss, yeah. So, you know, if I had my own Nivi or Untitled Marvel Project 2021, what it would be like to see them grow up

and that feeling of not having enough time with them, everything goes by so fast. And, you know, it's cool that M. Night Corner did the same, was working with the same themes in a different way. It took him, you know him only eight weeks in one location to shoot. Old, not ten years.

It is on the treadmill. David just flexed his muscles. He's got two weights in his arms. He's gonna fly now. He sees boyhood. Look, he's the Rocky of filmmakers. He's running up those Philly steps. He's Philly. It's true. He's a Philly icon, just like Rocky. It is kind of incredible

this film works from what I would say are all three perspectives of how scary it is as an adult, as a parent, to watch your kids grow old. How scary it is as a child to watch your parents grow old, and how scary it is to grow old.

Yes. There you go. You nailed it. That's exactly right. That does all fucking three. Exactly. That's exactly what is so good about the metaphor.

Yeah. But then also just the movie gets to be playful. Yep. Gets to be sad. Yep. Gets to like, you know,

do sci-fi shit. It gets to be lovely. And people are like, eh, it wasn't very good. you know what you're not very good my gut instinct right now is that I still probably put Unbreakable as my number one Sixth Sense number two and this is my number

three Shyamalan I think interesting that's my gut reaction my number one is The Village I think that's his I love that movie you've been early killed is early no I'm joking I love The Village I'm just I'm joking I love the village I'm just saying

and then I think Unbreakable Sixth Sense and then I have Old Four yeah I have Glass Fifth Glass would be my it's a pretty hot take

for me Fourth I need to think I need to see Glass again I like Glass even more than you do I need to watch Glass again I need to see this again

I almost saw it a second time today but I ironically ran out of time the last Airbender which is a movie i hate it yeah i can't go back there but nothing i've watched the whole thing right you kind of i kind of want to but i only imagine that'll make me hate it more what's the last airbender feels

like being on the old beat where you're like where is time going so i haven't seen the last airbender or after earth sure does did he write after No. I think After Earth is the only one he didn't write at all. Is that right? Yes. It's Gary Whitta. I mean, I'm sure he did some massaging of the script,

but it is... No, you know what? He does have a screenplay. He does? Okay. Yeah. What about Last Airbender? It was very much not...

It does not originate with him. What is that movie about? After Earth? It's like they land on Earth. What should it be about or what is it about? It's thousands of years later. What is it about? Like, does it touch on the Shyamalan themes

that we've been exploring in this episode? What's about is the fucking father and his son in a spaceship crash on a hostile planet. The twist, except the twist is set up from the beginning, is that it's Earth. So it's Planet of the Apes with no monkeys. But you know that from the beginning. It's an overgrown Earth. So it's Planet of the Apes with no monkeys. But you know that from the beginning.

It's an overgrown Earth and there's monsters who can like smell your fear. The actual thing the movie's about which is kind of Shyamalani and I think probably

why he agreed to do it aside from just career desperation of the biggest movie star wants me to do a movie I'll do it is that the ship crashes

and Will Smith is trapped and Jaden has to go get help for him. And it's like, you have to go on your own. You have to be the man. You have to be the adult. I can only guide you so far at a certain point. You have to figure out how to do this yourself. And it's up to you to find help to come back and save me.

Okay. So there's some, you know, the empowerment of a child to go... No, it of course thematically ends up being a lot more about the relationship between Will and Jade in real life than it is about

the M. Night sort of parent-child stuff that he likes to explore. It's a lot more about, like, you go off and be a movie star and Jade being like, I don't know if this is what I want to do. Right, so kind of like Space Jam 2 with LeBron.

Yes. And what's his kid's name? Dom. Dom. Dom in the movie. Domin toretto james um all right i have a question though for you guys because i feel like hearing you both list off your updated ranking is this maybe the first or like i don't know i feel like there's so few directors where you guys list late period movies this high up. He is arguably the only guy we've covered who is maybe in his sweet spot after we finished covering.

Well, it's just his weird thing of two sweet spots with a huge dip. Right. There's not a lot. I mean, I don't know. I'd have to think about it. But like, it's unusual for sure. Well, I thought,

well, was, did you guys cover L? We did. No, I know you covered L, but did you cover it as part of the- We did. It had already come out by the time we did Rehoboam.

Because that is one to me where I'm like, oh shit, he's like at the top of his game. Yeah, and look, I'm fucking amped as shit to see Ben Dutta. Me too.

And I love that, A, he made the ben nickname easy for us but b that he's now like and i'm going to make an american thriller my jesus movie and it's like yeah just go out guns of blazing paul he talk about old he's old he's old he does not get i feel like paul verhoeven is not afraid of dying no like he's just we are just seeing all of the beautiful sand castles that he's built if paul verhoeven was on that beach he would start fucking the rocks and saying i dare you to make me old no you do what like joaquin does in the master oh yeah he builds the little sand lady and then he's like hey yes but yeah sean malone's career i mean it's it's so funny because you know i i do you say sean malone is the the frazier of uh-huh blank check yeah i kind of you know i think

he's kind of like the godfather of this podcast not godfather the movie no he is he is the like the concept of doing this only really crystallized around him as an example he's the little seed that got planted absolutely and it's just i just i love that his his narrative it's you know it's still evolving and also much like fraser it's like he didn't just try to do cheers again his second wave right after his his valley is him figuring out how to take some of the stuff that used to work and putting it in a new dare I say it

Patina oh alright alright well let's play the box game any final thoughts wait how are we playing this sounding a little there's a box office okay it's it's uh what is it today wednesday tuesday it's tuesday it's tuesday i don't even know what year is it oh no 2021 ben got old yeah all right ben got old old alright you don't like it

no I love it I just I just think he he messed up asking what year is it because it's like well I don't really know I didn't know how to yes and that one should I say a different year does he think it's earlier or later and Ben just I said the year and Ben was just like

some dirt bikes just rode by. Hey, come on. Wait a second. Don't drive around fast like that. Aren't there speed bumps on your street? No, but there should be. There should be. I'm writing, I'm a congressman.

You're writing, well, I would write your city councilman. Your congressman. He doesn't know. He's too old. He doesn't know who to write to. He's too damn old. He's getting out a typewriter right now. Is it a candle?

No, there's a box office. Of course there is. Well, for like this week? Yeah. How fun is that to guess? We all know the answers. Well, we can talk about the movies in the week. Okay, let's talk about the other movies.

I'll say this though, okay? A thing I found with the box office that's weird is I think we're still in the point where you have movies in the top 10 that are making well under a million dollars. There's only one. There's only one. Okay, so that's progress.

And old was the lowest grossing number one in a long time. In a million dollars. There's only one. There's only one. Okay, so that's progress. And old was the lowest grossing number one. In a long time. In a long time. In a long time. Although it is one of those weird box offices where it's like a lot of movies are sort of close together and gross and all that. I mean, obviously, I'll gross like War with Grandpa,

but if you're talking like theaters being reopened, it's a low number one. Well, before we get into the box office game, but this is relevant to movies that are currently being released uh so david we had a very um strange experience as we left the theater okay for old uh there's there was a huge poster like it took up the entire wall at the multiplex sure or this post shaman say we're uneasy we're questioning reality again what year is it what time is it my god how long were we in that theater for and let's make it clear we walk into the theater we're not running late but the movie's

like five minutes away from starting we want to get snacks so we see this we clock this we we crack a couple jokes about it but it's not until we walk out of here that we really step back to it. The theater's closed, there are no more showings, and we're like, let's really examine this. So there's a movie that was supposed to come out this week. The Comeback Trip? So that's

the movie with Robert De Niro. David, let me tell you the billing on this movie. Yeah, I mean, I'm aware of this movie. Academy Award winner Robert De Niro. Yep. Academy Award winner Tommy Lee Jones. Yep. Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman.

And of course, the fourth name above the title on this poster is An Introducing Butterscotch. Isn't my horse, David? Isn't my kind horse? It looks a lot like him. So I didn't know about Butterscotch. Butterscotch is new to me. Butterscotch is brand new to all of us.

So the poster said July 23rd. It says come back to theaters July 23rd. We're like, what is this movie? We're like, what day is it today? I say to Marie, isn't that today? And you go, no, no, that's not possible. That's not possible. That doesn't make any sense.

That doesn't make any sense. So we pull out our phones and start checking. It is not playing anywhere in America. No, I believe its release was either canceled or pushed to virtual. It is very surreal to stand there and look at a poster with the day that you are currently living and telling you, come back to theaters and have that not be playing on one of the 25 screens at the establishment you're at with three Academy award winners and introducing butter Scott. Literally right across from the snake eyes.

Right. Snake eyes is there. Look, I don't look, I got an email about the comeback trail, like a couple of weeks before it came out. Release canceled due to total lack of interest. No,

no. Well, I mean, I think that's what happened, but like, uh, but they certainly with like July 23rd, like screening links available, like come back to theaters. The, the, I mean, I think that's what happened. But they certainly with like July 23rd, like screening links available.

Come back to theaters. You know, the movie is written and directed by George Gallo, who wrote Midnight Run. He did. I think it was made a very long time ago at this point. Zach Braff is in it, I believe. It's so fucked up that Zach Braff got replaced by a horse named Butterscotch on the official poster.

Zach Braff who invented podcasts. Sure, yes, of course. Twice. But yes, I think maybe they just decided to pretend like... That happened with that movie about the snakes, too, where they kept being like, it's coming out. It's coming out this week.

It's coming out. Actually, we're gonna put it out six months from now. Is that the Sundance movie? Yeah, was it called Them That Follow? Oh, yeah. Anyway, number one at the box office. I just want to say, David, that of course the comeback

trail is the film that gave us Robert De Niro's current Wikipedia photo, which you're obsessed with. Oh, really? You told me to look at this. No, I know. I just didn't know it was from the comeback trail. Are you getting one? It's changed. Now it's just some picture but it was time moves so fast time's moving so wait but like what was the you have to look up de niro's poster for i mean i know he's got this like mustache or whatever yeah and it's like a fucking director's cap and like yeah he looks okay while he's doing this really quick uh something I did want to say as my final thought

is the title of this movie. Old. Old. Old. Old. It's good. It's a good title. And I think more movies should just encapsulate

what the vibe is in just one fucking word. Do you know the name of the new Jordan Peele movie, Ben? They just announced it last week. Oh, it's so good. You're going to love it. What is it? Nope. Oh, shit.

Yep. Yeah. Fuck yeah.'s so good. You're going to love it. What is it? Nope. Oh, shit. Yep. Yeah. Fuck yeah. That's good. The poster is a cloud with like a fucking kite string coming out of it. Yep. And then just the three actor names. Nope.

Nope. From Jordan Peele. Who are the three actors again? Steven Yeun, Kiki Palmer, Daniel Kaluuya. Great fucking cast. Love all three of them. Number one at the box office is old. Yes.

15. A gentleman's 15 okay okay it went up a little sunday is that domestic or domestic domestic number two griffin is the other new big movie this week snake eyes snake eyes and unlucky 13 million right obviously look it's coming out at a trepidatious time for theaters sure people are scared but like this is the thing with that and with free guy and with some of the stuff that's kind of clogging up you and i these months talking about free fall right those were things where they're kind of like well we have this movie doesn't it have to come

out well essentially snake eyes were had like fucking all these toys tied to it that had been sitting in a warehouse for two years and they're like what are we gonna do anything was never gonna do well right there's no one cares this is a little bit are they when you say there are so many toys like for children yeah gi joes well i know it's gi joes but like i just don't under like i've seen trailers for snake eyes yeah this is a movie that's being marketed to children well it's a movie that they hoped could revitalize a brand that was originally popular for children if you ask me and i'm someone who kind of defends both of those prior two films as

fun junk. Summer's movie and the show movie. They're fun junk. Those movies very much, if I were six, would have made me want to buy all those action figures. And Snake Eyes from the trailer looks really fucking dour. But this is the thing. And it is one of those things where the toys meant for him. It looks the same as the Mortal Kombat movie.

I could not differentiate them. This is all I was going to say. I won't go into a whole fucking merch spotlight corner here. It is very telling to me that G.I.

Joe, Snake Eyes Origins, whatever the fuck it's called, a movie based on toys that is supposed to revitalize a toy brand for a toy company. They made all the toys

look different than the movie because the movie characters look boring and they want to make the toys more colorful. They look realistic. Right, so then maybe make the characters look like that in the fucking movie or what's the

point the ghostbusters trailer dropped today and it's it's it stinks to high heaven and it's got this portentous kind of like you know oh there's a legacy and like and like it's got this fucking music and i'm like why is this what goes it's so ridiculous. We're going to do Ghostbusters on Patreon. I've been saying this for a while. After this one comes out. Yeah, we'll do the first one. The study of three bites at the apple trying to figure out how to reproduce Ghostbusters,

which all have very different approaches, is very fascinating to me. Okay, I just want to say, I'll just out myself with it. I had a very much a Space Jam 2 reaction to the trailer because i was like this is bad but i'm like but also ghostbusters is good like that's what they're trying to do i know here's the thing i know i know that movie is gonna get me at moments i'm already resenting it like i'm not excited for that movie and i know i'm gonna sit there and it's gonna fucking trick me into

feeling shit like twice i didn't see Ghostbusters until like seven years ago. I've only seen one. Haven't seen any of the others. I don't understand what the emotional connection is. There is none. It's just we were kids

and we liked it. We were going to do it where it's going to be like, oh, well, she's their descendant from, you know, but like, no, there is none. I will say this. There's no like emotion.

Like I don't really get like a big emotional arc. There's nothing. There's nothing. There there's nothing we will do our patreon series about this i have a thousand thoughts i just want to plug our friend patrick williams friend podcast past and future guests did a great video about the first ghostbusters asking the question is ghostbusters the best movie that is about nothing and his argument is ghostbusters is the only movie that is that good that has no thematic depth to it whatsoever. There's no like larger

it's just Bustin' makes you feel good. Anyway. Did you say Bustin' makes you feel good? It does. That's what the song says. And it does. Why are you getting angry at David? Who are you gonna call Marie? Number three at the box office is a film from the Walt Disney Company.

One of their subsidiary branches has a movie about superheroes. I'm sorry, you said it's a movie about superheroes? Yeah, they have Walt Disney owns a brand that produces comic book inspired movies about superheroes. Paul Black Widow. I forgot that it

jumped up above Space Jam. It sure did. It sure did. Yeah, because Space Jam dropped 69%. Nice. Really nice. Yeah, because Space Jam dropped 69%. Nice. Really nice. Can I... Finally, she's got her own movie. Listeners of the podcast, I would love you to

at us on Twitter if you saw both Black Widow and Old and think that Black Widow is a better movie. Yeah, look, I... I mean, you're allowed, I guess. No, I agree with Murray here, where it's like, I don't say that as like a provocation.

I would be interested in hearing that. Yeah, well... I'm not gonna fucking clown on people. I'm actually curious, because I do feel like Black Widow is peak my problem with Marvel, and we've gone over this. There are Marvel movies I love.

There are ones I tolerate. Black Widow is everything I dislike in the Marvel movies where I'm just like, it sucks. It has fucking no flavor. It's got no character. It's got no personality. But I guess, for some people, it does nothing weird enough to upset you. Versus

a Shyamalan thing where he's gonna push you and poke you and prod you into things. Black Widow, for some people, it's like, I can sit here and it's just a fucking passive experience that never makes me scratch my head. Well, that's my problem with the movies. It feels like the main character is having a passive experience. That's my exact problem.

I just want to know, people who prefer Black Widow to the films of M. Night Shyamalan, what do you want out of a movie? I don't know, maybe a movie that features Ray Winstone saying, widowsh. Saying what Ray Winstone saying, Widowsh. Saying what? Widowsh. Widowsh.

That's right. Old is what I want out of a movie. It's what I want out of a theater going experience. She should have put him on the old beach. That would have taken care of him. Instead, she's got to break her own nose or whatever to defeat him. I like that moment. I mean, I like that Ray Winstone's in the movie,

but it's just like after uh what uh 13 years black widow will finally get her movie a businessman with thick rimmed glasses who's the ultimate villain ray winston's like i'm russian on i right it's me the russian man yeah like it's just like this is it that's like the only sequence the movie that has any juice for me it's true it's It's not even bad. And there's no bones that rattle once. Don't think so. No rattling bones. That was huge for Ben.

All right. Number four at the box office is a film we discussed last week on the podcast. Space Jam 2. That's right. A new legacy. Should have been called

Cyberspace Jam. Yeah. Big drop. Yeah. It didn't go down like 77%. 69%. Nice.

Look, my dad loves to boost BlinkCheck on his LinkedIn. Sure does. He's a real proud dad. I should friend him. You should. Oh, you should. You're going to get clap emojis. You're going to get a lot of clap emojis.

On your grams. And what's the prayer hands as well? Oh, I love your dad on Instagram. Yeah. He's great on Instagram. Famously hacked on Instagram. Yeah, he's great on Instagram. Famously hacked on Instagram. But, I don't remember if it was his Instagram or his LinkedIn,

but I sent to you guys, he posted with pride that the Space Jam episode was doing well. He gets doubly excited when, you know, James or Romney are on an episode. We have multiple Newmans on one episode or whatever. But he had this, like, all caps caption under the screen grab of us on the Apple chart that sounded violent.

Where he was like. He's yelling. Griffin and David and James dominating the charts. Number three with their Space Jam episode that is almost three hours long. And I was like, Dad, you don't have to mention that it's almost three hours long. That's a point of embarrassment. We hadn't seen each other in a while. I appreciate his enthusiasm.

First in person. Number five of the box office is a film we also all saw together. The movie is called F9, The Fast Saga, Our Return to Theaters. That's still in the top five. Still in the top five.

Number six is Escape Room 2. That already came out. Number seven is Boss Baby 2. Well, you're making some money off of that one family business baby number 8 is Forever Purge which really kind of came and went I think it rules it might be my favorite Purge movie

when are you guys covering Purge they're good we gotta do a commentary I like the Purges have you seen Forever David no I haven't seen that one it's really good i'm going to uh number nine is quiet place part two solid and uh then you know we got news new entrant here joe bell formerly called good joe bell oh mark walberg is a dad whose kid he's walking walk heart yes do you guys can i spoil the twist of

joe bell yeah spoiler alert for Joe Bell. Is it true that you don't know the twist that the kid is dead until the end of the movie? You can guess that the kid is a ghost. But his face is a real story. He's talking to his kid the whole time while he walks.

But they don't let you know? No, they don't. That's weird. It's this kind of movie where you're like you know what there's a good version of this movie maybe and this is just kind of almost directed that movie carrie fukunawa almost directed that one yeah yeah isn't the director yeah who's yeah he's at least like there's just there's a good version everyone's trying hard in that movie it's just very perfect i just i mean it's interesting to see walberg give a performance

even though i don't the movie's not good look he's trying to tamp himself down and it's sort of like okay you know but you know how he like doesn't do an accent in that other movie that just came out you know how he doesn't do an accent in that other movie that just came out what other movie the Fuqua movie oh Infinite that movie is so bad someone told me

that he does a movie that went straight to streaming that has made less of an impact than that to be fair it went straight to Paramount Plus which I subscribe to for like Star Trek but like no one else that movie I threw it on because I'm like look Fuqua is not a director I love but like he tends to make pretty robust watchable

stupid movies and like Chiwetel's the villain and like half the fucking movie is them being like Mark Wahlberg you're like a samurai because of reincarnation he's like what are you talking about who's this guy and you're just like it is the worst fit of of star to recent look the joe bell thing

for me is interesting only because mark walberg has such a fucking messy past yeah protected groups but the idea of him doing this movie about persecuted people right and someone's sort of like gaining a conscience and all that sort of shit he's not bold enough one to talk about that in public of course and two it's just that doesn't really feel like it's like his performance in the movie is not strong enough that you're like oh i really feel like he's working through something here but it's also like he fucking willed this movie into existence to a certain degree he really wanted to do this it plays it fucking tiff or whatever and it's also just funny there was called good joe bell and they were like you know what drop the good drop the good

it's just joe bell yeah let's not let's not overdo it crazy that movie got bought by what was it called solstice studios who released the russell crowe car movie yeah drive angry uh that's it should have been called driving it was called unhinged i'm making a joke i know the title folks uh don't at me um but they were like we're we're gonna reopen the theaters unhinged first movie in theater solstice is gonna make a huge fucking splash they buy joe bell for 20 million dollars and they're like we're gonna re-edit it we think there's a masterpiece here and then six weeks later they're like no we're not we're gonna let roadside release it in six months quietly yeah okay i don't know what happened to Solstice.

Can I just say a thing? Yes, but we need to be done. But yeah. No, I know. But this is putting a bow on this box office game. As you said, it's a volatile time. It's a weird time. Delta, it feels like we're fucking coin on its side. It's an inception top. What's going to happen? Right. Right. But I also do think there's this thing that I think to some degree we need to accept whether it's for the indefinite future or it's a permanent thing of just like the thing we have perhaps lost. I go back to you saying like, well,

snake eyes was never going to do well. Right. But the version of snake eyes that would have bombed two years ago would have made 60 million dollars uh yeah no it would have done better right bad because because aside from the people like us who are fucking hardcore lunatics and are going to defend the movie theaters for as long as we can right there used to be people who'd go like i don't know it's friday what's out there's a fucking snake eyes movie why not you're losing the casual moviegoer i think we've we've largely lost the casual moviegoer and who knows if they come back or not but with a lot of these movies it's just like

there's no default audience people are making very strategic choices about very specific movies they want to see and they're not going to see anything passively um right and that could change but it could change it's not something movies can really control, honestly. No. All right. But old is good. Old is great. Old is good.

Old rules. Can I say it? Can you guess? I think it's a Glastropiece. Yeah, it's a Glastropiece. But you know what? I actually think it's better than that. Because I think Glastropiece means something a little specific where it's like...

It's when you make a movie called Glass that's also a masterpiece. Right. But also it's like a movie where it's like, well, you make a movie called glass it's also a masterpiece but also it's like a movie where it's like well maybe old fits a movie that befuddles but you're like no no this is special it's not flawed but interesting you could call this movie elmer okay okay okay sure remember spation no notorious pig the fucking okay So you guys were saying. We got to be done. I know. Don't start another tangent. It's very short. Okay. What is it?

Big Chungus. I didn't know what Big Chungus was. And you were like, oh, they put Big Chungus in Space Jam. And you were like, oh, he's this fucking Bugs Bunny meme. Right. And they put a reference into it. Were you saying that to me? That wasn't me.

Really? Yeah. I don't know. I thought it happened on Mike. But someone was telling me like, well, they put Big Chungus in there. And I was like, what's this fucking Big Chungus like Photoshop? And I looked at it and I was like, that's a classic cartoon.

He does an impression of Elmer Fudd. That's the context in which it happened. Whatever, bad tangent. It's like a, it's become a meme. Oh yeah, when he's big, right. But it's him, that's when he does his Elmer Fudd impression.

But it's become a meme, you know, because like Bugs Bunny reaction shots are now like a sort of internet language. I like the one where he's in the tuxedo. Yeah, exactly. I wish all my blank a pleasant blank. Yeah, exactly.

But all of those are like taking a Bugs Bunny thing and turning it into something different. Yeah, because Bugs Bunny's cool. Yeah, Bugs Bunny rules. He was my favorite movie star. I'm so sorry, Griffin. It sucks. Space Jam. Anyway, old's good. Old's so sorry, Griffin. It sucks. Space Jam. Anyway, old's good.

Old's great. Kill the podcast. It's time for it to die. It's time for the podcast to die quietly on the beach as we stare off into the water. Holding hands, clinking its bones. Consider whether it's worth

going through the coral. Why does the uncle hate the coral so much? His uncle hates the coral. Folks, thank you so much for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe, and

get old. Ben's shaking his head because I refuse to say like or whatever. Follow. Right, that's what it is. We're too old to change our ways at this point. Yeah, we're old as shit now. I don't know how old I am anymore. Thank you to Marie

Barty for social media and for being on the show. You're the best, Marie. Thanks, Griffin. Excited to all get old together. Thank you to Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds

for our artwork. Thank you to Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. Thank you to AJ McKeon and

Alex Barron for our editing. JJ Persh and Nick Lareown didn't do research for this episode, but guess what? We're going to throw them the thanks anyway because they're part of the family and we love them and we'll get old on a beach together. Tune in

next week for John Carpenter. Hell yeah. John Carpenter. Because Hotel Transylvania 4 got pushed back. We're starting Carpenter earlier than we expected. So yesenter. Because Hotel Transylvania 4 got pushed back. We're starting Carpenter earlier than we expected. So yes, next week, Dark Star. Should we say who the guest is? Emily Ishida.

Emily Ishida, mother blankies. Back to kick off a new series. Mama. Mama. It's a good app. We do a lot of Google Maps stuff in that one. It's a good app. And like, if you've enjoyed the Space Jam app and the... Oh, I forgot that whole thing.

There's a whole weird zillow... We don't need to say anything else. If you've enjoyed the energy in Space Jam and old of us being in the same room again, chronologically, Dark Star was recorded earlier, but Ben and Emily only are in the same room. They sure are. And they are as goofy as we have been,

and David and I are like, Go to pitchrand.com slash blank check. We're about to do those Riddick movies. We're getting pitch black. With Dick Riddick. Dick Rick. Dickie Riddick. Richard Riddick. It's his name. Richard B. Riddick.

It never stops being funny. At blankies.red.com it's real nerdy shit. And as always everyone got to the joke before me but I'm still gonna make it I love old that's good

thank you