Blank Check with Griffin & David - Oppenheimer with Marie Bardi

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

DA MOVIESH ARE BACK, BABY! Film Director Barbie joins the gang to chat about Christopher Nolan’s latest and an historic weekend at the multiplex. What’s the best format for seeing OPPENHEIMER? Which of the many character actors in this film makes the biggest impression? Will David make his sexy Christopher Nolan voice a new recurring bit? Plus - we address the SAG strike (solidarity!), the social media discourse around this film (so dumb!), and Ben admits that science used to seem cool. This episode is sponsored by:  Factor (factormeals.com/check50 CODE: CHECK50) AG1 (drinkAG1.com/blankcheck) ExpressVPN (ExpressVPN.com/check) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

Why would we move out to the middle of the desert for two to three hours? Why? How about because this is the most important fucking podcast to ever happen in the history of the world? Great job. Thank you. Great job. Did I blow up the levels there, Ben? A little bit.

Okay. But that was a great job. But no one does grumpy sort of bureaucrat spittle like mr matt damon i i was talking inimitable i was talking to someone who had seen the trailer and hadn't seen the movie yet and said like there's that moment that damon has in the trailer that feels almost a little silly and a little goofy and over the top and i watched the trailer and just feels like is he yelling every single line right in this movie and my my answer was he's basically playing superintendent chalmers right like it's not that he's like failing at seriousness it's

it is kind of ostensibly a comedic performance of him being the befuddled constantly at the brink of blow up superintendent chalmers to oppenheimer's skinner i hear what you're saying well not skinner though well i don't know he's not really skinner right because skinner's such a got such a stick up his ass but he's he's the the chalmers too just think of my favorite chalmers joke he's professor frank oppenheimer's Professor Frank. And Chalmers... I just, I feel I have blood on my hands. Blavin. Blavin. My favorite Superintendent Chalmers joke is when he says, it's the exact same joke, what gives?

Like when the guy gets a laugh out of the kid. Just nothing is funnier for me than there's this sort of catch breath on Aurora Borealis Well obviously But just the moment where you can't even Sort of a scientific moment That's what I'm saying The whole movie is sort of that scene

Not to jump We haven't even introduced ourselves Except for my favorite One of my favorite moments in the whole movie Is Damon is Groves testifying herself but sure except for my favorite one of my favorite moments in the whole movie is damon is is groves testifying and you can tell he doesn't want to say i wouldn't have approved i wouldn't approve this guy now yeah but he says any of those guys well no no he says it but then he tastes like but i wouldn't approve you know he he tags on you can feel like him trying to like

you know break outside of the protocol by being like you know what the fuck is you know come on guys he has one of the best answers of anyone in the hearings we're making blair ask him the question i forget what it is and he said no the question is like can you believe i'm sundance winner i went i directed a great movie at sundance i like starred in a great sundance movie i directed a great sundance movie. Sorry, go ahead. And he goes, no, and if I ever for even a moment let anyone in this room to believe otherwise, I apologize. There's something where he basically says

like, I'm sorry if I created a false understanding. Macon Blair, who plays the guy representing Oppenheimer in the movie, Ben, is both a writer. A nice lawyer man, you know, with the glasses. And filmmaker uh in his own right uh do you know what his new uh his next project is as a filmmaker ben no the toxic avenger oh that's true

baby that's sick starring peter dinklage right yes jason uh jacob trambley yeah is anyone friends with him anyone know him i know like 40 million people who are his friend like he is not many degrees removed from us yes if we if we ever do toxic avenger on patreon i think he's a bookable guest i'm saying spray my ass with some sludge get me on go the other way well we got come on reshoots reshoots patreon goal ben saying sludge him up um today we're not talking about Toxie. We're talking about one of the original Toxic Adventures, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. J. Rob. And what just has to be. No, J. Rob. From now on. J. Rob Oppie. A No Bits episode. Very serious, right?

Has to be. Yes, of course Must be Important It's the most important podcast in the history of the world Right Yes It's Blank Check with Griffin and David

It's very serious and it's very important My name is Griffin My name is David We got the full deck today Yeah, I'm producer Ben I'm here today I'm social media'm producer Ben. I'm here today. I'm social media maven Marie. I'm also here today.

And we have someone else joining us in the studio on your desk. We do. She had a lot of thoughts about this weekend at the cinema. Her name is film director Barbie. And I believe you said she cost $5 at Ross Dress for Less? It was TJ Maxx. Might have been $10. Okay.

And my mom bought it for me. Gold. Yeah, I just saw Barbie with a camera and a little viewfinder, and I was like, I need her. Look, this is a—it's not a Barbie episode, right? No. Because this is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their career, just been given a series of blank checks, make whatever crazy passion projects they want,

and sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce, baby. Boing. And all of what I just said certainly applies to Barbie and the career of Greta Gerwig, but it is not a career we have covered up until this point. Genuinely, don't really consider people until they've made four films.

I mean, technically, this is her fourth film. Would we cover Nights and Weekends if we did Greta Gerwig? No. That would be like, we'd do that on Patreon or something, right? We'd do that on Patreon in a black hole. Yeah. Movies. Not great.

We excluded her from Best First Film Consideration when Lady Bird came out at the New York Film Conference because of Nights and Weekends. We don't talk about Joe Swanberg anymore. No, and his whole thing was like, well, everyone directed this movie.

Okay, buddy. Right, when people say like that was her first co-directing credit, I'm like, she had a big hand in that movie, but his thing was always like, this is a collective.

We gave her best film instead. I love that for you guys. It was a great moment for us. Yeah. But that was one of two massive movies that came out last weekend one was barbie yep a film we probably will cover in some future date when greta gerwig has made more films i look i i love and admire the films of greta gerwig and i think we'll talk about her one day on this podcast right not today because uh she is one of the few people in the modern era the last

10 years who has been able to carve out a kind of classic blank check career that keeps on trucking up and up and up it's true while also maintaining complete control of her voice and her style and her worldview uh and if for a long time it felt like is christopher nolan the last guy who got through the door and got to build a career that way at that scale with that intentionality? And these two people were pitted against each other the box office weekend and what became probably the biggest cultural phenomenon in movies in a decade. Yeah. Yeah. Because all the other biggest weekends were just one giant superhero movie.

the other biggest weekends were just one we're just one superhero movie and it's it's been the problem of one movie over performing to the deficit of all other films in the marketplace right everything getting squeezed out and you had two very weird movies that came out and played like fucking big titty blockbusters and the second one is oppenheimer the movie we are talking about today the new film by christopher nolan who we covered on the podcast back in 2017. Whoa. I believe that's correct. So it was time to Dunkirk? It was time to Dunkirk.

Yeah. Our Dunkirk episode came out about a month late, but it was time to hot Dunkirk summer. But yeah, Christopher Nolan is the guy that I think became the modern archetype of that's how you do it. And this guy kind of does one for me, one for them. But the one for them still feel personal. And the ones for him feel just like even wilder swings. And all of them work. And I feel like there was a big, a lot of discourse in the last week or so, people talking online about like who are the name directors that normies know

and how many of them are people who have come up in the last 15 years as opposed to the obvious names like spielberg who have existed forever right yeah uh and it's a pretty limited group and two of the people who get thrown out as like recent people able to cut through are gerwig and jordan peele but they both had the benefit of being on camera people for 10 to 15 years before their movies hit nolan is the guy he is the guy where like you look at this movie in particular and the biggest letters on the poster are a film by christopher nolte that's true that is the biggest selling point well the biggest letters are Oppenheimer.

And that's why people are buying tickets. Because they love Oppenheimer. The guy. The man. It's hot IP. As does this film. Yes. This film loves him unreservedly.

Unreservedly. And at the end, there's a big thumbs up emoji. Yep. Yep. And then underneath it says, this thumbs up represents our opinion of the things that he did. If that is your read on the film, then congratulations. You are correct.

You have read this movie properly. Love the discourse. Whatever. Who cares? I mean, it's not even. Honestly, the discourse on both Barbie and Oppenheimer has been pretty good considering the movies are so seismic. Considering. Because it's mostly just people being like, I don't know if you guys know this, but Mattel

had a bit of a hand in Barbie. Yeah. You know, the toy company. I don't know if people know this, actually, but J. Robert Oppenheimer had a bit of a hand in the creation of nuclear weapons. This is news to me on both fronts. He did. I had no idea. Yeah.

No, Barbie was not a plucky little indie film just sort of like crowdfunded or anything like that. Wow. Yeah. You don't actually see the bombs being dropped on Japan in Oppenheimer, so that might be why Ben didn't know. Didn't know. Right.

Yeah, I was wondering about that. Yeah. Look, this is one of the big things that people are arguing over, and we... What if your seat printed out a statement that was like, I, Christopher Nolan, think that that was bad? Well, that's... When people talk about like, what do the movie theaters need to do to draw people back in?

Right. Seat printers? Seat printers. Just a little roll. Unfurls. Right. In real time during the movie, a running commentary of the director explained to you everything they feel. Clean.

Or maybe there's like a heat measure. Like good, good, good. Bad, bad, bad, bad bad he's like i feel guilty good good you should you should well i think a lot of what people are chewing over on this film on balance i'm very into the fact that just the culture is very engaged in trying to wrestle with both of these films sure which i think are think are both That's what I'm saying. interesting, complicated, thorny movies that are both kind of

wrestling with themselves. Yeah. It's good to have some stupids in there along with some smarts. Absolutely. Come on. Society. Yeah, it's more generous.

That's some sillies. It means people are seeing it. We do live in a society. We can't all be film director Barbies who also have a perfect understanding of semiotics. True, true. She's so smart.

The bio on the back of film director Barbies. What? She can't climb the stairs? She's a plastic doll. But she can sit in her little chair. That's the number one slam you throw at her. There are a lot of things she can't do, David. That's the biggest one that jumps out to you?

Seems like an issue. The back of her package had, like, an explanation of what a film director does. And I said to Maria, I think this is a better definition than I've heard outlined most places. Like, defining, like, what is a director? What does a director do? Yeah. Well. Sets the tone and look of the film.

It doesn't begin like, Andrew Sarris defined the auteur theory. No, it's not auteur theory. it's not an auteur theory. It's like, this is what the job is. The French theory of mise-en-scene. No, there's nothing foofy

about this. This is just... Foofy! Film director Barbie wakes up in the morning. What does her day look like? Right. Yes.

Right. She is picked up by a driver to take her to set. Yeah. Director, driver Barbie, probably. And you could argue that's actually the hardest working person on the set because they have to wake her to set. Director, driver, Barbie, probably.

And you could argue that's actually the hardest working person on the set because they have to wake up the earliest. They gotta be half an hour before. Her Barbie PA gets her a Barbie coffee. And if she's a good director, she knows the PA's name. People would say that's not the most important part of the job, but in

a certain way it is. I have a feeling it would be Ken PA. Ken would be Ken P.A. Ken would be the P.A.? On a Barbie film set, all the P.A.'s are Ken. We've all seen both films. Although I believe David is the only one of us to have done the

Barbenheimer experience. I did do it same day even after mocking the very concept where I was like, guys, there are multiple days in a weekend. Like, you can fucking spread it out and be okay. Well, well, well. I ended up seeing them both the same day because that's what was demanded of me. Look, 200,000 people.

I saw Barbie, then Oppenheimer. That was my order. That feels like, I saw these films on separate days. I've seen Barbie once now and Oppenheimer twice. Yeah. Same here. I feel like that has to be the order. I initially thought that that should,

that should be the opposite because it should be fucking. Barbie's the pick me up. Exactly. Like, oh yeah, you know, get, get Oppenheimer done.

Yeah. You know, eat your big meal. Sure. And then Barbie's your lovely dessert. But no, now I'm like, no, if I saw Oppenheimer, I'd be be like i don't want to watch another movie right now i need to go home and sit that's what our buddy jd amato did and you joined them just for the second half for the

barbie but they did like early oppenheimer then like a big lunch and extended hangout like gave a couple hours i think that's tough i think it is better to do barbie first because when i was sitting down to see barbie i confess, at 30 Hudson Yards The evil headquarters Of evil Warner Brothers It's Aslov's castle Beautiful screening room I've been looking forward to Barbie

I like her to grow, but I was kind of like I'm excited for Oppenheimer The day before you were throwing a couple strays At Barbie You walked out, you said, I'm seeing strays at Barbie. Yeah, I was like, oh. You walked out. You said, I'm seeing Barbie tomorrow. I went, that's exciting. You went, eh, it's going to be.

I get it. I want to see Oppenheimer. I get it. It'll be good. I get it. I know what it's going to do. I know what Barbie's going to be. And then Barbie surprised me, I will say.

Barbie surprised you. You cried two times? I did choke up. I cried twice, too, David. I choke up just at footage of children playing. Yeah, that's what got me. Yeah. You're becoming, look,

you're becoming a bit of a Kevin Smith. Does he cry a lot? I've always been an easy cry. That's what I'm saying. I respect the emotional access that both of you have. The lack of guardedness. I didn't cry at all.

Steely disposition the entire time. Didn't even laugh. No, Ben just sat and he listened. Yeah, you sat your boy ass down. Your Ken ass down. Respectfully. Just with my fist on my chin. So yeah, but no, it was

a bit of a tiring day because I watched Barbie. I liked Barbie. And then I had to race to the office and review Barbie. Race to Lincoln Square to meet Mr. Oppen review barbie right race to lincoln square to to meet mr offenheimer doctor oh i was gonna say i was gonna say no i can't say because it's a future mini-series we had an episode scheduled we were supposed to do a podcast in between that would have been in retrospect insane i'll say this i won't say what what movie it was but it was an alex ross perry certainly a big one certainly a big one and we knew it was going to take a lot of time and it was probably going

to be fiery and it was smart to bump it to a different day but so yes you had some reset time and then we uh we all saw oppenheimer uh yeah we did yes except for ben you marie and i saw oppenheimer and then ben marie and i saw oppenheimer a couple days after that then apparently ben just went and saw it again yeah Yeah, I did. Solo? Solo bolo. You just took your ass to Oppenheimer? Matinee. Regal Astoria, was it? That's right. You know what was so

nice about it? As a resident of New York City, how rarely do you get to drive and park at a parking garage to go see a fucking movie? Damn, that was a real fucking luxury my question about the the it's the kaufman it's classic the regal kaufman story it's right by uh whatchamacallit what's the museum of the moving image well that but also what's the soundstage

that's by the silver cup yeah no it's not silver cup it's the kaufman yeah kaufman story yes of course what am i saying so do they have been here I haven't been to that Regal in a minute, but do they still have the Alvin and the Chipmunks in the lobby, or did they take those away? I think they finally got rid of them. I don't think so. Right? No.

I just remember seeing the Barbie display. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Because they had, like, fiberglass. Yes. I mean, they're there as recent as Spies in Disguise I'm seeing here. I think they finally only recently during the pandemic I think retired them.

They went to a nice farm upstate. If anyone knows where those guys are, I'd love to know. But we saw it the first time in 70mm, which is still the one time you have seen it, David. And then we saw it in IMAX. Yeah, I'll go see it in IMAX in four weeks when there

are tickets available. Easier to get in to see Hamilton than it in IMAX. Yeah, I'll go see it in IMAX in four weeks when there are tickets available. How does a ticket in New York City? This thing sounds like crazy. Easier to get in to see Hamilton than it is to get in to this. I literally saw someone selling a ticket for $1,000 on Craigslist. I saw that, too. It's wild. I don't know if he's successful. Someone in our Reddit was selling tickets for like $100 to the same screening that we went to on Sunday.

Yeah, that's wild. If they had known that we were going to that screening, they might have upped the price a bit. You guys got good seats? We did. We got really good seats. All credit to Marie, who jumped. She pounced. Yeah.

The second they went on set. She didn't bounce, baby. She pounced. I pounced. She did. But all this to say, David, you have not seen IMAX yet. Ben, the second time you saw it, I imagine it was digital, or do you know? Yeah, it was 2D.

Good old-fashioned laser. 2D. 2D. Okay. What if Ben came in here and he was like, it was a 3D film? It was 3D. They didn't even film that thing. They just kind of projected it sideways and had like a couple extra walls. It was fucked up.

Has it tilt your hand? It was less of a screening and more of a play? I have seen it. They just had like regal employees come out employees it was about a bunch of mormons like yeah you know singing like i don't know it didn't seem like it was so different they were in suits yeah it was funny right it went to like africa i don't know but it was it was maybe it was a different cut. I've never seen the whole plot, every cast member change between two screenings of the same film. Oh, boy.

Beautiful theater. Why did you land on Book of Mormon? I don't know. I was just kind of like, I have to pick a long-running show that's kind of boring. I already pulled a Hamilton reference. I took that off the table. I thought about Wicked, but Book of Mormon's kind of funnier

because you're just kind of like, oh, it's just running. I mean, and talk about discourse. We can't talk about Wicked right now. Yeah. Too hot to touch. I think this movie is incredibly good. I do too.

I would go so far as to call it a masterpiece. I will say, walking out second time, Marie and I looked at each other and we kind of feel like to call it a masterpiece. I will say, walking out the second time, Marie and I looked at each other and went, I kind of feel like it might be a masterpiece level. Very excited that you guys felt that way after. And the IMAX bump, but also just the way, knowing everything going in.

This is a movie where you're watching it the first time, and I think there's a bit of a twist, but it's a twist just in perspective, right? It's not a plot twist as much as it's like reframing how you've thought about the movie. And I do think because Nolan is the biggest name involved in this movie, I'm not saying he's the most famous person,

but much like Barbie, they're both examples where everyone in the audience is pretty much sitting there going, what does Christopher Nolan have to say about Robert Oppenheimer? Which is a pretty fucking unique position to have like mainstream culture being like,

I know who this guy is. I understand his oeuvre. And I'm trying to figure out why he wants to make this movie, right? It's not just us nerds spinning on this. And I think for a lot of the film, that's like kind of one of the central tensions

is like, what is it that's driving him to this? What is the thing he wants to say? What is he exploring? And I think to this what is the thing he wants to say what is he exploring and i think uh it it's it's what all the discourse is about is like what is he trying to do and what is he avoiding doing and all that so i don't want to talk about the fucking discourse uh but we already had our fun with them absolutely i i found this film very interesting through the prism of nolan who is a guy who is like uh as chewed upon as any modern director but in so many ways does feel kind of unknowable it is very easy to make jokes about

him it is very easy to parody him it is very easy to do analysis of his work and identify what his themes are and what like what we can sort of extrapolate like this is clearly a fear in his life because he keeps on going back to this or this is a thing he loves because he keeps on putting this on screen but in a certain way his interviews are always very clinical you know sure he's not someone who's going out there and doing like crazy self-promotion no he's he's a reserved british he's a reserved british man through and through. Right. He doesn't feel guarded. The way every, like, it's been so interesting to see Robert Downey Jr. talk to the press because Robert Downey Jr. has no filter in a way the very few stars, like, you know, because he just, what does he care?

Right. Right. And he's genuinely bigger than anyone else in this movie in his way. I just want to pause you right here and say to our listeners, if you have not read the New York Times interview with Robert Downey Jr., you have to. But I also watched a lot of these, you know know they do these fun the the wired auto complete and these round timeline of my career and all those things and other actors have said this too but the way robert downey jr talks about how like you think you're going in on set he probably was imagining something of a finchery experience of this sort of like i need this exact i you know i

have all the blocking i know exactly how this is supposed to look in my head and we're just going to do it again and again until i get it right and apparently with nolan it's much more like no no no no marks on the floor let's feel out the space we're going to figure this all out together and somehow it'll be quick yes and kind of gentle like you know like and you're like this movie has tons of people in it yeah Yeah. Right? Like all these conversational scenes where there's a bunch of different elements, human elements to consider. Benny Safdie, his interview with Bilge, I highly recommend. Because that is another filmmaker talking about how a filmmaker works. Yes.

With reverence and specificity. It's very interesting. He's very deep in the Oppenheimer trenches and everything he's been posting from his oppenheimer findings and all his interviews that he did over months and months and months all of it's worth reading yes but he basically said like i know how filmmaking works i've run sets myself right yes and uh i get the call sheet and i go like this scene's gonna be a fucking nightmare it's eight pages it has a hundred. We're in the middle of the desert. It's this and that. The dialogue's really intense.

Right. How are we going to get this all done in one day? And we were done by lunch. And we were done by lunch without feeling rushed or panic where it all felt very organic. And a lot of it is that when a filmmaker gets to this level, people know what they like and what they want. people know what they like and what they want. The greatest sort of like power they have earned is the luxury of people backing the fuck off

and letting them do things their way and not interfering. And it's like you have trusted collaborators. You hire people who have a sense of like, I understand how I'm going to fit into his worldview. And they let things play out kind of organically, you know? What a G. Yeah. I think he's a cool guy.

I do. And I do think, like, he had to do a lot more press for this movie because of the strikes. Yeah, although they banked a ton of stuff, obviously. But especially in the two weeks leading up to it, he's the one guy doing TV interviews and things like that. He's a celebrity director. That's the thing. He has a fucking name, yeah. I just think I saw less of him going out there

and doing the sort of personality stuff as opposed to just sort of like the junket video clips that would get recirculated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, but I think things like... Wasn't he on The View? He was on The View. He's a guest host on The View all the time. He's always jumping in. He and Whoopi always cut it up.

Like, obviously, Tenet, basically, the publicity for Tenet was very limited because no one was, like, interacting with each other back then. And then, like, Dunkirk, I'm trying to remember. Like, because in Dunkirk, he really was, like, the name. And I guess it was sort of similar to this publicity rollout. I don't really... I do feel like he felt looser in this round of

press as loose as he ever gets yeah i mean he's still a reserved brit but yeah but he did admit that talladega nights is one of his favorite movies on a tiktok if you ain't first you're lost like you know he said like that that moment where rich eyes his jaw just i can't believe i got you to say that like he's shouted out that movie before. I'm trying to remember. It rang a bell. Well, if I Google it now, it'll just be that. He is also one of those guys where everyone who works with him says, like, because there's this feeling of, like, is he secretive?

Is he private? Is he loof? Is he unknowable? And everyone who works with him is, like, a really nice guy. Right. Right? Like, it has his oddness, but with, like, a nice, personable man. No yelling.

No, yay. Right. And he's not, like, performatively obtuse, you know, or distant or whatever. And the thing you always hear from people is, like, he watches everything. Right. Well. He's, like, not a snob about movies. I'm going to shout it out.

Yeah. Our friend Bobby Finger ran into him at the Regal Essex. What was he doing? Watching Skinnamorink, baby. That's the thing I love, where he's like. Poor Christopher Nolan. Oh, should go see. Skinnamorink, baby. That's the thing I love where he's like, poor Christopher Nolan. Skinnamorink was alright. No, it was not, David. You big jerk. It was, no. No, that's an interesting

film. Marie, how much of Skinnamorink did you watch? I know you bought a ticket and I know you went to see it in theaters, but you texted us in the middle of the movie and said, I'm currently inside of my coat hiding from Skinnamorink. Yes. It was a deeply unpleasant experience, Griffin.

Films should not be experienced through a coat. That's Christopher Nolan. I've always said coats will be the death of the theatrical experience. Netflix is giving everyone coats. I will say that I was reminded... David Zaslav is trying to put coats on the American viewing public. Yeah, I like Nolan impressions. Just so quiet and serious. I was reminded. David Zaslav is trying to put coats on the American viewing public.

Yeah, I like her Nolan impressions. Just so quiet and serious. Doing ASMR right into the mic. I do love when he was like, HBO is the shittiest streaming service. Everyone was like, no, it's not. I was like, he's mad, guys. It's okay. It's got some good shows on it.

I'm like, I don't think he went through the library of HBO Max. I'm fucking furious. Finish your point, Maria. I'm sorry. I'm going to drag HBO Max on main. Now I have another HBO point to make, but my first point about Skinnamorink is I was thinking of Skinnamorink with the audio jump scares in Oppenheimer. In Oppenheimer, sure.

Those are the only two movies I can remember seeing in a theater. Well, maybe he saw Skinnamorink and... It's like we we gotta crank the volume up on those bombs. Did you notice that Skinnamorink got a special thing? Like the demon? Yes. Okay, so that was my Skinnamorink

thought, and then my HBO thought is there's a lot of talk about Warner's scheduling Barbie to go up against Oppenheimer as a petty fuck you. As a spite, you know, a spite store kind of thing. This is basically Big Nolan weekend. The majority of his films, or a good chunk of them, and especially most of his highest grossing films,

have come out between July 20th and July 29th. Every film except for Tenet, which was intended to come out then, obviously, but was pushed a bit. And Interstellar, which is pretty much the only movie he didn't make entirely with WB

and was put out in the fall. And I bet you he wishes he put that out. Yes. And Batman Begins was June, but from Dark Knight on, they're all basically

his lucky end of July corridor. But my question, didn't H, didn't what is now Max remove Westworld, the Jonathan Nolan show? Did they? I think they removed it. They sold it to...

But do you think that was part of the fuck you Nolan family? That was later. I know, but... No, that's their general incompetence. Yeah, that's their... I don't know. That to me, I was like... They did... They sold it to like fucking Fubo or... That's their general income. Yeah. I don't know. That to me, I was like, hmm.

They did. They did. They sold it to like fucking Fubo or Rivet or yeah. I bought it. All right. I bought it. Yeah. I gave him 800 bucks and, you know, whatever.

A bottle of wine. That was that whole weird thing where like they also like Zaslav wrote a check to Nolan for like $10 million recently to be like, hey, sorry. Yeah. Although then it was just like, well, but it was just residuals. Like Zaslav was trying to spend it as like, I gave him a really healthy kind of, and then other people like, no, those are just like residuals he was owed. Yeah. Who knows? I do know one thing.

Yes, David? It didn't work or matter, this spite release thing. No, it helped. It helped everybody. It's one of those sort of magic. It happens sometimes of just like everyone goes just to see the movies. And maybe Barbie's sold out and you end up in Oppenheimer or vice versa. Maybe both are sold out and you're like, fine, dial a destiny.

He's what's he looking for? I don't think Paw Patrol is it. Do you know? Yeah, you know who Paw Patrol is going up against? Do you know this, Ben? Paw Patrol. There's a new film. It's called Paw Patrol,

the Mighty Paws movie or the Mighty Movie or something. I think it's the Mighty Movie. It's the second movie, which is now they all get superpowers, right? Yeah. And that had staked out its release date and it was theirs alone.

No competition. And then a sneaky little studio named Lionsgate rode its tricycle up and the new Barbenheimer state and it was theirs alone no competition and then a sneaky little studio named lion's gate rode its tricycle up and the new barbenheimer is saw patrol saw 10 comes out the same day as the mighty movie and there's a lot of audience crossover the overlap so can i just we'll talk about oppenheimer parents dragging their kids i'm gonna i'm gonna i sat through mighty movie you have to sit through Saw X with me. So, we're gonna start Oppenheimer

after I say this thing. Okay. I feel like I'm setting the marker. So, Saw X has been announced. Yes. It will star Tobin Bell, the jigsaw killer. It's about him going to Mexico to get...

Some experimental health treatment. Right. Because, of course, Tobin Bell dies in Saw 2. Yes. And Saw 3 is set around his autopsy. And then, I believe, as the Saws progress, they had increasing trouble trying to work him in. Right.

So there's all this, like, timeline fuckery in Saw. Filling gaps. Like, with flashbacks and stuff. And so this one, they're just like, we're set between Saws 1 and 2, okay? So he's in it. Yeah. And I tweeted a joke, like,

oh, you you know the most terrifying thing of all they you know health care system right funny joke by me i'm just fucking trolling wait the health care that's because he needs like cancer treatment wait but that's literally i thought you were making a joke no no no okay so that's literally cancer it's the whole motivation for his twist i haven't seen any of the saws. So I've only seen saws one and two. And of course I did open the book of saw. You did. Correct.

Spiral. Yes. But I've not ever seen all the saws. All these people fucking start tweeting at me being like, bro, that's what saw six is about. And I'm like, okay. Okay. No, no, you don't understand. Saw six is kind of the best one.

And I'm like, I can feel it in me. The piece of me that just watched all the insidious where i'm just like am i gonna have to watch all the saws no you're going to god damn it i think i am yeah i'll skip spiral i saw that one yeah and maybe i skipped the original because i've seen the original a few times although maybe it'll be nice to walk back down memory road with jigsaw what do you think yeah old time's sake yeah maybe we're doing on patreon we're not doing half the year there's so many of these fucking movies wait so he's actually like is he in a puppet costume no the puppet is just like a little robot yeah so

he's got a robot puppet and then he sends to talk because the puppet is named jigsaw and he's also named no the pup the puppet's name is billy billy the puppet on the tricycle wait really yes yeah yeah i mean he calls himself jigsaw the whole look marie the whole this is like when i went over to erlix to watch bluey and i was like wait bluey is a girl yeah blue's a girl but bingo's a girl as well they're sisters but I thought Bluey was a boy. Why? Because he's blue? Yes.

Maybe you better check yourself. I know. Well, very Barbie-thinking, Marie. Bluey's parents are Bandit, who is blue. Right. They're both Australian herding dogs or whatever. Right. And Chili, who is sort of brown.

Right. So I thought Chili- And so each of their kids has one of their coloring. Right. But I thought it would be the boy looks like the boy, boy looks like the dad and the girl looks like the mom they got two girls you know what i'm sorry gender essentialism look i'm i'm currently writing a bluey article because they put up some new episodes and my editors were eager for it but i recently was talking to my wife your editor is your two and a half year old daughter bluey

i mean she literally was asking me for Bluey today. And I was just having a conversation with my wife. My child is not even in the room. And I was like, do you think Bandit and Chili will have a third kid? Because like they're aging in the show. Like the show is actually moving forward in time. Would the third kid be a mix?

Well, we don't. I was just sort of floating the idea. And she was like, no, but they threw out the crib in of floating the idea. I was like, and she was like, no, but they threw out the crib in that one episode. And I was like, so they're probably done. They're probably done.

And I was like, wait, I'm talking about them like they're real people. You're analyzing it like it's fucking Mad Men. It could be like the element of surprise. And that is a very,

I've heard Bluey is very realistic in the way it deals with human emotions. It is. It is. I mean, it's a perfect show to be clear.

I love Bluey so much. I just thought it was funny perfect show, to be clear. I love Bluey so much. I just thought it was funny that I was talking about them like I was talking about my friends. I was like, please don't have another kid. Should we have Bluey on the show? Absolutely. I would. I mean, I would die.

We don't know who voices Bluey, though. They don't put it in the credits. It's like an Australian child. Do you know this? What do you mean, voice? Bluey is a cartoon. Pension. It's an animated series.

This was like the tension of Ben trying to book Chappie to be on the show recently. I mean, we got film director Barbie here. We do have film director Barbie. It's not hard. She's pretty quiet, though, I will say. Yes, she's not saying a ton. Well, because she's not on mic. She has headphones, but she's not on mic.

We haven't done any levels. She's not saying it's hard. Well, because she's not on mic. She has headphones, but she's not on mic. We haven't done it with apples. If you're a Mohawk College grad, get ready to make your diploma, certificate, or degree work even harder. Connect with the Mohawk College Alumni Association today, and you can win one of five great prizes.

Connect to exclusive benefits, discounts, contests, career support, and networking opportunities. Update your contact information today to win one of five great prizes, including a $500 gift card. opportunities. Update your contact information today to win one of five great prizes, including a $500 gift card. Then get busy making your Mohawk alumni network work for you. Enter today at mohawkcollege.ca slash alumni win. Okay. Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer released June, July 21st, 2023. Just, you know, to, to to to sort of uh quickly line things up right it's like nolan's this guy he we many times on the podcast have bemoaned the step that is missing from most

people's career which is the insomnia between memento and batman right the you sort of get to level up with bigger stars and a bigger budget, but you're not immediately thrown into franchise churn. Sure. And Batman Begins was this example of, like, we feel so defeated by Batman and Robin, we gotta let you do whatever you want. He makes something that's very much him. Okay. Are you recapping Nolan's whole career right now? Is that what we're doing? I'm doing a very brief overview to build to a very specific point.

I thought you were going to be like, okay, so let's go back to 1939. Hitler invades Poland. Well, it's another career worth looking at. Hitler? I don't think so. Not a good one. I'm not saying we should cover him. I don't know that we're going to look at it.

I'm not saying we should cover him. It was influential. Okay. I don't like the guy. All right. At all. In fact, I quite dislike him. Okay.

On a personal level. Okay. I disagree with a lot of what he's doing. Nolan. Let's just keep it moving. I'd be pretty unambiguous here. Stop laughing, Marie, because we're going to have to cut this. Not a fan of the fellow.

Uh-huh. We should leave this in. No. No, I'm not sure we should. I don't know. It's the Norm Macdonald bit. The Hitler, the more I read about this guy, the less I like him. The less I like him.

Sorry. I mean. Anyway, Christopher Nolan. Donald bit the Hitler the more I read about this guy the less I like him. The less I like him. Sorry. Anyway, Christopher Nolan. But most of his films are being made at Warner Brothers. Yeah. Dark Knight is the moment where it's like holy fucking shit. And then his blank check after that is

Inception when that is almost as big as Dark Knight. It's like, oh, wow, this guy can do anything he wants. Continues to have this run where he gets to write the rules of his career, and running parallel with that is him more and more taking on this role as the spokesperson of what he thinks is, like,

the culture of cinema that needs to be preserved, what he feels, like, is at stake, is in danger, right? A hundred percent. He is a deep and vocal advocate for seeing movies in a movie theater. And for the use of large format filming, you know, to emphasize the power of cinema. Yeah. And a lot of the covering of him is like, is he a weird Luddite?

He doesn't have a smartphone. He doesn't check emails. Right. All these things. So this obviously all builds to tenant tenant which is just set up as another chris nolan movie sure here's just gonna be another one another big summer well i think also he seemed to have been settling into this sort of like i'm gonna go like slightly more prestige slightly more genre like i'll flip back and forth that was his version of

the one for me one for dunkirk was a little more, still a big, you know, action-y movie. All of them were still hitting. None of them are too esoteric to play with mainstream audiences. But Tenet was more like, let me, you know, do sort of a sci-fi James Bond movie, blah, blah, blah. I think it was on the Big Picture podcast they talked about. It felt like Dunkirk and Tenet back toback were him sort of like splitting his own atom. His interests. Right?

Yes. You know what Tenet does? What? Fuck all day and night. Good Lord. That movie is absolute sex. For a sexless film. Tenet.

They should have called it Tantric. But the way you're describing it. I'm eager to see it again. I really hope they put it back in IMAX. That's what I want. I want my chance to see that movie in IMAX. I saw it in IMAX. I went to Lincoln Square and saw it,

but I just was so overwhelmed being back in a movie theater. What's this swill on the schedule in sort of late August or whatever? Clear it out? Give me Tenet. The Mighty Movie has a six-week hold on the IMAX. What is the Mighty Movie has a six-week hold on the IMAX. What is the Mighty Movie? The Paw Patrol! The Mighty Movie!

Jesus, they're gonna come fucking arrest me. Throw me in their fire truck. Yeah. Tenet Fs so hard, and in retrospect, the movie made $360 million in 2020. I mean, it is... It did

pretty good. I i mean it's sort of impossible to kind of evaluate that movie i think you and i were talking about this that like tenant was quietly in certain ways yeah kind of the best thing that could happen for him and that like he was getting to this point in his career where it's like well now the pressure and the expectation is so high on each of his movies because the guy essentially doesn't miss right he hasn't whiffed right and right so he whiffs but it's like sort of a an understandable whiff or whatever right like out of his out of his control yeah he whiffs ish i do think if that movie had come out in a normal world it might have been seen as a bit of a disappointment because it is it is a very uh

elusive movie it's hard to know though it might have done well maybe who knows we have no idea who knows but like we don't know we were saying his worst his worst movie i think most people think is dark knight rises i think that uh i i yeah yeah sure i mean i think following is whatever maybe oh sure you know maybe excluding his worst major movie is is dark knight rises i would say a movie some people love it made a metric shit ton of money yeah that sure it does have its big defenders and also at the time was positively received its sort of reputation has gone through weird shifts over time over the last decade right yeah uh but tennis the one that maybe would have divided

people a little bit more and it came out in such weird circumstances uh but part of those circumstances were that nolan felt this pressure of like i can feel cinema culture slipping away we have to reopen the theaters we have to get this movie in theaters and he pushed sooner than he should have and as you said you step back It's insane that that movie made $60 million coming out when it did. In the U.S., sure. And, you know, 360 worldwide. That's bananas. It basically had four to five months where there was nothing else playing in theaters.

What, it was September to December, basically, right? Yeah, sure. That whole time is a bit of a blur. Same. Yeah. But it did create this odd thing of like, oh, there's this Christopher Nolan movie that kind of half doesn't exist, right? And that people saw in this very trickled way.

Very few people saw it in IMAX. They see it mostly at home, whatever. And then there's this sort of whole Warner Brothers, they announced they're going to put all their 2022 movies on HBO Max. And Nolan is just like, this yeah hbo max streaming service i'm leaving i'm going to universal right or rather he said i'm a free agent i'm a free agent uh apparently paramount dropped out fast because they were also making a lot of like streaming

is the future noise and so he was like not interested so i think the major players for his business were basically Sony and Universal. Yes. And he really likes Donna Langley who runs Universal. Yes. And she's very – she's more old school, I would say. I think so. And he probably responded to that.

And they gave him a big budget, obviously. 100-day exclusive theater. You know, like, you know, we're not going to put it on streaming for a long time. And they cleared out the schedule where it's like there's no universal release, like three weeks either side. They gave him a real sweetheart deal.

They rolled out the red carpet. But as you said, when he goes like, I'm a free agent now, you go every fucking studio in Hollywood is going to be fighting to get Nolan, a guy who has pretty much been loyal to one studio from the moment he became the biggest director alive. And it wasn't even, like, at a certain point,

he's no longer the biggest director of his generation. It's like, Spielberg's name doesn't mean as much as it used to to general audiences. Tarantino does, but not at the same level that Nolan does. Like, his movies just fucking pack him in. Yeah, yeah. Like, someone like Tarantino maybe

is more of a celebrity figure but his movies are not made for his widened audience even though his movies do really well totally spielberg makes a lot of movies yes and yeah he's not a guarantee there used to be a halo effect we're all there's still something of one but yes right he doesn't uh and he doesn't also spielberg just doesn't feel commercially minded as much anymore like i, I feel like he's just kind of like, I'm doing my shit over here. And when he tries to make a commercial movie, it arguably now works less well

than when he just does whatever interests him at that moment. I'm ready to play one of the masterpieces. I agree. But wait, question. Yeah. Would you call Oppenheimer a commercially minded film?

Well, I don't know. This is my point. The moment that he's a free agent, you're like, everyone's going to be fighting over him. then the story comes out what he wants to do is jay robert oppenheimer and you go like oh but he's going to want to do it his way he's not going to go let me make a little 20 million dollar palate cleanser movie he's going to want to make a nolan-sized harrowing drama about excuse me what is possibly the most devastating decision in human history.

Sure. Right? The fact that, like, Universal rolled out the red carpet for him was very exciting. But I have, for the last couple of years, been like, is this going to blow up in everyone's face? Pun intended. You are wrong. I'm excited to see this movie. Yeah.

Is him insisting on doing it his way at this size, at this scale, and this style and everything, is this going to lead to a moment where it's like, O-Tour Cinema is dead. We cannot indulge these people. We are so back. We're so back. We're so back. I mean, look, I'll also say.

Yes. It's still a World War II movie of sorts. Uh-huh. It's got that hook for, you know, older audiences. And he was able to get a lot of big-ass stars in supporting roles. Everyone in the world wants to work with him. Yes. Everyone wants...

I mean, casting RDJ is the perfect example of him being like, I'm going to a meeting with anyone and they'll say yes. Yeah. Like, who would say no to him? Daniel Day-Lewis. Right. Maybe. People who are retired.

Gene Hackman. No, Hackman would do it. Hackman would do it. Yeah. You have to play Fat Man Day-Lewis. Right. Maybe. People who are retired. Gene Hackman. No, Hackman would do it. Hackman would do it. You have to play Fat Man. He's like, all right. I'm packing on the pounds. Almost everyone who has more than five lines in this movie has at one point been number one on a call sheet.

I think so. Right? Yeah, absolutely. At some level, at some scale, some sort of project. Well, no. I was going to say Josh Peck, Drake, and Josh, but then was he probably number one on the wackness? Of course he was.

Number one on the wackness. That's what I'm saying. Even if everyone here isn't a total movie star, almost everyone who speaks has at one point had to carry a thing themselves. That's why he cast Thirlby as well. Going up to them and said, I love the wackness.

But this is what I find so fascinating about him. He was selling Italian oysters. Maybe he's seen the wackness four times. He's, I love the wackness. But this is what I find so fascinating about him. He was selling Italian oasis. Maybe he's seen the wackness four times. He's probably seen the fucking wackness. We all saw the wackness. Admit it, you saw it. I actually didn't. I didn't either.

It's not bad. Wasn't it about NYU? Yeah. Wasn't it like Washington Square Park movie? It's Jonathan Levine. What's his name? You know, the 50-50 guy. Oh, yeah.

I didn't see that movie either. It's got Olivia Thur olivia thorough being it my crush at the time i loved her i mean i still love her yeah it's so funny in 2008 i really love he's got this parallel track thing right where it's like he loves to take guys like modine and like uh uh modine's been number one on the fucking call sheet of course he has uh rutger hauer yep uh tom barringer there's a lot of names like this. Exactly. Right. These guys where they were sort of like briefly leading

men in the 80s. Guys who got some weight. They got a little ballast. Right. Eric Roberts. And then they maybe ended up a little bit in the wilderness. They kept working, but they weren't given the serious projects. And he loves giving these media supporting roles. And then he also loves his Wes Bentleys, his Josh Hartnett's, his Olivia Thirlby's.

Fucking wimpy kid. Right. But this movie also had like Alden and Dane DeHaan. Where it's like, here are guys that Hollywood started to like put all their weight behind. Put the pressure on them. Then very quickly kind of discarded them and went, maybe you don't have what it takes. And he's like, there's a reason they were in the conversation. Give them a couple scenes with some real meat.

And they'll just show you their steady hand. They know what they're doing. I think there's more reason they were in the conversation. Give them a couple scenes with some real meat, and they'll just show you they're a steady hand. They know what they're doing. I think there's more going on than that, though. And we should talk about this film in general. But I do think he also knows there are no composite characters in this film. Yes. So he's not doing the usual short-cutting

you would use for a biographical film. He knows if you just fucking recognize the guy's face, when he pops back up 20 minutes later, he'll be like, yeah, that guy. Right. I saw, you know, yeah, fucking Dane DeHaan. I get it. I get who he is.

You need these people pinned in your mind. And he is, always has been, and is such a good caster of actors. He just totally, everyone in this movie fits exactly what they're supposed to be doing. And like, maybe there's no one in this movie where you're like, wow, that's a really surprising choice. Like everyone,

you're kind of like, yeah, he makes sense to do this. Hartnett is maybe the closest. I would say. I think he's, he works so well. Rock solid.

Oh, I mean, to be clear, I love it, but he's the one where you're kind of like, oh, I really haven't seen him

do this before, I guess. No, no. Although I never checked in with old Penny Dreadful. I know he was. I bet he's like a wolf man. I don't think it's this. Right. Maybe he's a smart wolf man. No, no, no. Although I never checked in with old Penny Dreadful. I know he was. I bet he's like a wolf man.

I don't think it's this. Maybe he's a smart wolf man. No, I just also love that they're all theoretical physicists. They're all these like, you know, nerds with lunch pails. And then he's the one like practical physicist. And he's like a beefy boy. He's just like a nice Midwestern man. He's like, I built a cyclotron.

You want to check it out? I think Josh Hartnett is from Minnesota or something. You want to shoot some atoms around? Where's he from? Let's find out. I think Josh Hartnett is from Minnesota or something. You want to shoot some Adams around? Where's he from? Let's find out. I think he's from Minnesota. I think he is. Well, you know what?

What? Why don't I just Google him and then we'll get the answer for sure and then we'll all be happy. Minnesota nice. Looks like he's from a little place called Minnesota. Told ya. What a man of a thousand lakes. I told ya.

10,000? Like a lot of lakes. Let's talk about a guy who has grown into his look. But that's also with Nolan, I think. He really likes the guy who's been here for 10, 20 years and has settled into their look. Has some history. Has some weight, as you said. Even when he's cast in Wimpy Kid, he's like, well, you've been, you know, you had your time with Wimpy Kid.

I know he's not Wimpy Kid. He's Roderick. And Roderick rules. Yes. What does that mean? That's the spinoff. The second. Is he Wimpy Kid's friend or enemy?

No, no, no, no, no. Wait a second here. I asked if he was friend or enemy. He is Wimpy Kid's bully older brother. Oh. Older brother. Too cool for school. And the second Wimpy Kid movie in the original franchise before they reboot it, the first

of two times, is called Roderick Rules. The subtitle is Roderick Rules. Right. And it is that the parents, who I believe are Steve Zahn and Rachel Harris in the original. Sounds right. They leave Wimpy Kid alone for the weekend with Roderick. With Roderick. Roderick.

Devin Bostic is the actor. Rules. He is in charge and he decides to throw a big-ass party in which no alcohol Bostic is the actor. Rules. He is in charge and he decides to throw a big ass party in which no alcohol is drank because the movie is PG. And do you know

what Devin Bostic is in as well? Okja. He is in Okja but do you know what else he's in? What? Saw 6. It all comes back

to Saw 6. He's in Saw 6? He is. I don't know what he does there. I just know he's in it. Wait, is Shawnee Smith in Saw 6? Well, she's in a lot of Saws. She's in almost all of them.. I just know he's in it. Is Shawnee Smith in Saw 6?

Well, she's in a lot of Saws. She's in almost all of them. Yeah, yeah. She's in most Saws. We can't get into Becker talking. We can't do it. We can't do it. Ben, just play the theme song for like two seconds and then cut it out.

Glad you said no to that. Okay, so what's most interesting about this film to me is that it was conceived, together and written all post-tenant yes which is how nolan operates i know that he's very much like i work on the movie i'm working on and then when it's done i look for the next thing and then i work on that so when he had such a comfortable home at warner brothers it's just like i decide what i want to do and then i just bring it to them as a thing i i get that i get that the idea that like he can move heaven and earth in terms of logistics. I'm just like,

so this is based on a biography written in 2005 called American Prometheus that won the Pulitzer Prize. Yeah. By Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. I have read this book. Okay. Congratulations, David. And let me tell you,

it's very good. This fucker is a doorstop. It's a big, big, big book. Didn't it take him like 20 years to write it? It's like, I mean, and obviously. Well it it was like 20 years to do all the research research and all that and it's a very very comprehensive

work that's like really trying to take you through like every single person he knew and all it just I can't imagine picking up this book and being like yeah I could fucking squeeze this thing into a screenplay like Pattinson gives him the book no Pattinson gave him the book no no pattinson gave

him this is very interesting okay a uh so robert pattinson by the way sounds like a great gift giver because post-tenant he gives him um oppenheimer's like speeches oh packaged up together uh as a rap gift because of course in tenant they mention yes the uh the the sort of oppenheimer's fear that he was about to ignite the uh atmosphere yeah um and he's pattinson who just i swear to god the sexiest smartest guy he said he felt that tenant's main idea was what if you could uninvent an awful technology what if you could put toothpaste back in the tube right because of course tenant is about what if goes backwards what what if thing goes backwards. Yes. And what if friends all along.

So he gives this, of course, he gives this to Nolan and Nolan's like, hmm. And then he learns of this book, which has been optioned

by Charles Roven because James Woods, the actor, gave it to him. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yes, that's James Woods. Yes, that James Woods. We, okay,

because we saw that credit and assumed it had to be someone. A different James Woods. What? No. So this was because Roven was his main producer at Warner Brothers for years. So you mean to tell me that James Woods gets a cut of the box office receipts for this movie? Possibly. I mean, you know, money's flowing in all kinds of directions in Hollywood.

No one should see Oppenheimer mendes sam mendes had been initially interested in making an oppenheimer this is set up like early 2000s yeah and mendes makes sense um the book is 2005 five five correct okay yeah um and uh you know this um book gets put in nolan's hands and it's announced in September 2021 that he will write this book. So he probably wrote this script over the summer. Write this movie. Yeah, direct this movie. He's going to write the book, actually.

He's going to read the book and I'm going to do a better job. Yeah. And yeah, as I said, you know, his services are up for grabs when Universal gets them. Yeah.

But it just, I just just he's put the whole fucking book into this script yeah which seems like just like a tough job he said i'm sure you've read this script that his famed sort of howard hughes book a script yes uh a biopic he wrote like 20 years ago that he never made he's gonna going to make it with Jim Carrey. And he never made it because of the aviator. But he said like, that really taught me how to write a biopic. Right. And I'm doing here what I was doing there. He's not obviously reusing material, but he's reusing the way he cracked it.

Whatever it is. Which is very interesting. David, let's admit also the major X factor here is the pandemic. You're saying how do to put it together so quickly he's got like fucking four kids to raise but we were we were texting with jd and saying like how interesting it is that it feels like uh asteroid city uh barbie and oppenheimer three movies by three of our like biggest kind of name brando tours we have working today right yeah or all these like star studded everyone stuck in the middle of the desert who am i what am i doing what is my life about movies these weird

existential crisis movies that are all kind of about like i mean asteroid city makes it literal that there is a quarantine you know but all of them are these sort of weird formed intentional bubble societies stranded in the middle of nowhere and it does feel like all three came out of these people being like what do i write now you know like in this destabilized time yeah and no for sure i'm sure the end of the world is on his mind in a different way yeah um and obviously this film does feel like more current because we've been talking about nuclear war more in recent times because of Russia. Yes, but also all these other, I mean, the way we talk about technology, the way we talk about the tiny decisions made in the lead up to and during the pandemic that had these ripple effects that were so great. that had these ripple effects that were so great i think it is the number one thing this movie is about which i think is interesting uh is like just the position of being being placed in a position where you have the been given the power to make an incredibly

consequential decision under intense pressure and a decision that cannot be undone. Right. You saying the, the framing of the, like, uh, the tenant question, like what if you could undo a bad invention? And this is the opposite of that movie. This is what do you do after you've done that? Um, right, right. Um, that's part of what this movie is about. Right. Seems confounding for some, I've seen some complaints about the latter, like, act of this movie. Don't really understand that. It's crucially important. Yes. And obviously it's very important to the biography, like, because it's a huge part of his life, you know. But I think Nolan's trying to understand as well. I have things to say about this.

But, like, you know, why did he put himself through this hearing when he knew he was going to lose his security clearance and all that like you know which we can talk about yeah that's it i i think i see i've seen a lot of readings of this movie that are sort of saying like well nolan relates to oppenheimer nolan is using oppenheimer as like a surrogate character and i think it's that he fundamentally is like kind of confused by oppenheimer as a guy this is a movie about him trying to crack him i think it's the whole reason that the narrative is so fractured because his final conclusion is this guy was kind of unknowable i think to himself there's the line benny safty's character has about like the great sphinx of modern science or whatever um it feels like the only person in this movie who actually knows him is kitty

to some degree it feels like she knows his flaws and yet his inner turmoil she has him read better than he has knows himself and so much of this story is about like you know this film starts out i i keep on when i'm like revisiting this movie in my mind getting ready to talk about it for this episode the image i keep on going back to is him in university in the first 20 minutes of the movie when he's lying awake in bed at night and it looks like he's having a nervous breakdown.

He's like drenched in sweat and floppy haired and whatever. And he's like seeing these like physics spirals over his head. And it's like this movie starts and he's a guy who basically, it hurts him to be alive. Yes, he can sort of, that's how Nolan is representing it, right?

That he can like see the world in a subatomic way. Right. Right. And he cannot function. That's a big part of his biography. He struggled a lot in his 20s. Not only can he like not function socially engaging with other people, but he also isn't even doing well in classes his brain is like such active chaos that it's like he just feels like a raw nerve of a human being where you're like well

this guy's not going to make it to 25 he was he was good at theory bad at lab yes it wasn't good at the practical stuff right and then you have this this moment not jump around but this all in the first half an hour when he finally meets Florence Pugh's character, Tatlock. Gene Tatlock. And he offhandedly mentions that he like had years in therapy, right? Yes. That this Apple incident where he attempted to poison a teacher that no one could really totally make sense of. It was a malicious act.

He said himself, I admire the man greatly. I don't know why I did it, you know? And that he's come out of therapy on the other side and he's now basically like batman created this like character right at this point he is like a guy who's developed a look a voice a style part of his thing is being like this great unknowable reputation precedes him here's this horned dog who chain smokes cigarettes and dresses like a cowboy ask the questions that everyone else is afraid to ask you know but it's like it's all it's all like batman it's like a suit of armor he's placed around him it's a persona he's created to try to

push his ideas into the world and that persona is basically like exploited by everyone around him. Everyone uses that to their own ends, you know. He thinks he intimidates everyone else. And he, over the course of the movie, realizes that like everyone else can see through the fundamental vulnerability of him. And how that can be manipulated and how it can be used in the ways that benefits them. Alyssa Wilkinson wrote a really good review of this movie where I think she just kind of pinned it where she said, like, it's ultimately a movie about power

and about, like, the fascination of who wields power and how do you get power, right? And the whole, like, Oppenheimer versus Strauss double narrative is one guy who is in pursuit of power as means to an end. He just likes the idea of power. He likes the idea of building himself out of dirt

and rising to the top of American politics. To what end? Who fucking knows? He doesn't seem to have anything he really cares about or wants to accomplish. Well, okay, go on. Right? He, go on.

Finish your point and then I can. Oppenheimer is a guy who has this amazing ability and is like all about about understanding, right? How do we create a greater understanding of our world, a greater control of our universe, our power, you know? Exploration, expansion, all this sort of stuff. But in order to do that, he needs to accumulate power. He needs to have the power to actually be given the opportunity,

the resources, be granted the ears to get those things done. And in order to do that, you either need to start making concessions in your own life in order to accrue that power personally at some sacrifice to your humanity usually, or you get in bed with people who wield that power and could throw it over you and then you give them some control over your life sure sure i mean okay okay a lot to think about um that's my main read okay okay well lewis strauss is like he is a figure of small c american conservatism like which dominated american culture after the war and like he was his his mentor was herbert hoover who is the king of small c conservatism uh and like you know just the idea of like less government business is best this is a thriving nation we want to encourage that by you know you know not you know anti-rooseveltian sort of you know anti-new deal right um and that is the culture that enveloped to me like oppenheimer's creations and whatever you know the war post-war society because so much of what happened with nuclear weapons is preventable in oppenheimer's head i think whether or not it's

true like you know like he's like we didn't have to do this. Like, right. And obviously he feels guilt or responsibility or whatever for creating the thing. But he's also like, I didn't, you know, I didn't know you were going to make a million of them. Like, and maybe I should have. And I feel like Nolan is like seeing Strauss is like, this is the perfect representation of the type of paranoid, egotistical, sort of country-first thinking that led us down the road of like, well, we got to make more. We got to make the bigger one. We got to be ahead always, right?

Like, I don't know. I mean, Strauss had like, he's, like you said, he's, you know, he made himself out of nothing. So he saw himself as like an American ideal in that way. Like, here I am, Jewish kid, born in poverty. Like, you know, I, you know, here know, here I am on top of the world. Like, that's what you need this country to be. But then it's what's your skill set?

Being on top of the world. Yeah, he's, you know, he's so, so true. He's good at it, I guess. I don't know. Business! Business! The thing that I latched on to thematically was the difference between theory and practice. Which Oppenheimer is a theory guy. He's theory theory theory guy and what happens when someone who is an ideas person

or a creative gets put in a position where they have to make something well not only that he's handed tremendous power like you're saying and like and um freedom yeah because we need you right now like and you're the guy who knows how to do this so you want to build a city in your favorite place on earth which is what new mexico was to him right fine unlimited money you want all your friends to come here great you guys all want to get together and fucking bandy about ideas cool and then they're like we think we made a bomb the military's like great put it in a box see you later we'll call you like and they're like what are you gonna do with it and they're like we're not having a conversation

anymore like you did what you were supposed to do right the most devastating moment in the movie is those bombs getting wheeled off and you're like wait a second is that it like that's clearly what they're all like oh shit okay what are you gonna do should we you know it's amazing it's amazing stuff like but i don't i don't think for a second that nolan is putting himself on the same plane of importance as robert oppenheimer he's saying i was like the most important person who ever lived right yes because he's like at the focus of this moment i think the thing he's relating to on a micro micro level is that within his tiny little sphere of just the world of film culture yeah right which is not incredibly important in the grand scheme of humanity it's the most important

thing in the world to us in this room to everyone everywhere right it's the most important thing it's the most important fucking thing in the world uh but that he has become a guy where the entire industry kind of hangs on his every word. And he understands that any interview he gives, any choice he makes in his career. So you're saying this is how he relates, sort of. Right. It does move the winds of the industry, right? I mean, my read on that is he made something that then contributed to the deaths of, well, no. Well, The Dark Knight Rises.

Literally, The Dark Knight Rises, the death of 12 people, 70 people are injured. Oh, no, I take it differently. He made The Dark Knight and it contributed to the death of Sidoh. Yeah. But I think it's all of this. But people actually died. I think he has had several examples of movies in his career that, that like fundamentally shifted the culture in one way or another. Right.

So you have like the mass shooting at the Dark Knight Rises. You have the Dark Knight being the movie that Hollywood's going to break itself trying to chase and replicate. Right. And then you have Tenet, which is him being like, I wield the power. Everyone listens to me. What I choose to do with this moment. I'll save cinema right now. Right.

I can do it. Right. And it didn't work. Did it have catastrophic results? No, but it didn't work. He misjudged that moment. He did. I mean, especially if he was the one pushing, and I think a lot of reporting said he was pushing, like, no, we can do it this year. We don't need to wait. So that's the thing. I think Nolan could very

clearly outline to you what he was thinking at every moment, and I think they're pretty moral decisions or reasoned decisions in all of the steps of his career versus a guy like Oppenheimer, where I think he himself struggles with why he was doing anything at any moment. But I think that's the thing he's relating to is a guy who suddenly put that position where, you know, is Louis Strauss that different than a studio head, right? The people like Matt Damon, who are saying, here you go, we'll give you $6 billion and we'll build a town and you assemble your own crew. Is that not unlike, you know, saying, here's your budget, go put together your cast, put together your whatever.

In a certain moment, we're going to put everything you gave us in a crate and we're going to sell it. And if it doesn't work to serve our needs, you're fucking out in the road. You know, we kick you to the dirt. Now, isn't it, though, that as someone who's obsessed with, like, stars exploding, that if you actually want to not just theorize but make the thing,

that you don't have a lot of options. Right. I mean, it almost would probably come down to exclusively working with the U.S. military. They certainly, yes. There's not really other places that you can go. I mean, there are, but in terms of practical applications. Can I ask you guys a general question?

Yeah. How do you feel about science? Love it. What do you mean? Well, like, what's your... It's cool. Yeah, but like, did you... What science are you into?

So I'm bad at science. Okay. I didn't get good grades at it because I'm not smart in that way or I didn't apply myself in that way. I'm bad at math. Me too. So I was particularly bad at physics, which is very mathy. I never took physics.

I was better at chemistry and although, but I, but I never did, you know, I did high school science. Right. history and although but i but i never did you know i did high school science right my dad loved science and he would read countless books non-fiction books he read all the fucking you know he was obsessed with science so a lot of my like interest mostly like space like that's where my science interests i feel like manifests mainly ben are you a science guy big i wasn't good at it in school, but I've always loved science. You sent a pretty radical text yesterday, Ben. Well, okay. Yeah. I mean, I was joking somewhat.

What was your text? I basically just said, like, I was very surprised to walk away from this movie so thrilled and felt like wow science is cool but there's something about this particular time that i think is really just fascinating it's like so new all of this just the discovery of a black hole like that's so fucking cool it's pretty cool it's pretty cool come on and then you could on a piece of paper write down an equation to be like, well, that's proof of a fucking... I mean, that's where I'm lost, but I'm glad they can't do it. I mean, I thought that the movie did a good job of not making me feel completely lost by all of the science talk. I think he mostly skims through that. Which I'll say, honestly, the book American Prometheus does too.

The book is not really about science. Right. honestly the book american prometheus does too the book is not really about science right it's more about this man and his youth you know as an anxious student and then his young manhood as a sort of quasi-communist or fellow traveler sure like who he knew and the whole sort of berkeley scene of scientists and all that and then the manhattan project and then you know the aftermath of like celebrity scientists and then you know uh being dragged in the public square and so you know yeah and also just that he constantly was fucking uh left and right important if i can just read ben's text verbatim it was i'm very surprised to report that I think being a scientist was cool at one time. So not now?

I don't know about now. They might be up to some cool stuff. They might be up to some cool stuff for sure. I'm sure people are. His follow-up text was, and being a doll is a weird job. That was ReBarbie. ReBarbie. Yeah.

Ben, if you went to CERN, would that be cool? Over in Switzerland? I don't even know what that is. It's the Center for Nuclear Research. Particle. It's where they have particle accelerators, like mile-long tunnels that they shoot atoms at each other.

Well, right, because they did that sort of thing recently that I feel like, unfortunately, the owner of X was involved with in some way. Do you know what I'm talking about? That thing where he rebranded Twitter as X and it's cool and we all like it and we're going to make it a bank? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Do you know what I'm talking about, though? It was like some sort of new form of centrifuge in some way. It's the Large Hadron Collider, I believe, is what you're talking about, probably. Yes, I think so. And they found, they're trying to find, quote-unquote the god particle

yeah yeah i think mr musk probably cares about that i don't care about him though so i think he's an uncool scientist i mean it is very cool to think of like people in the 1920s like albert einstein writing down like the way gravity works if you extrapolate it, suggests that the thing in the center of our galaxy is a big black hole that's so heavy nothing can escape from it. I just figured this out through math. And then, like, a hundred years later, we're like, we can see the black hole. Yeah. He was right. He was right.

He wrote that down on a piece of paper, but he was totally right. That's cool. Yeah, but it's hard. It's hard as a kid to be like what are you talking about like the equations new like you know like you know it's hard to to represent and this movie does do a good job representing but the theory in that way of like if you want to make a big shiny movie at a certain level you need to get in bed with these companies that we're increasingly finding are pretty fucking bone deep evil.

Griff is dragging it back to the movie metaphor. No, no, no, because I think this is what, to Ben's point, it's like if you want to make those breakthroughs, if you want to come to some greater understanding of the universe we live in and what is possible and how to harness it, you're probably going to have to do it for the military and turn it into a weapon. Or you're probably going to have to do it for Mr. X, you know, who's doing it for whatever ends. It's like it's these central questions of like, you know, it's a lot of the, you know, on a much smaller scale, the wind rises thing. Right. Sure. Yeah. This is fair.

This this has a bit of a wind rises vibe. Right. Like, how are you going to get your money to make your thing. How are you going to get your money to make your thing? How are you going to get your support to make your thing? And if you are letting someone else give you that, then what are you giving them in return? And what are you sacrificing? And what are you handing off?

What control are you losing? There's a difference between this and The Wind Rises. There's a difference between Oppenheimer and the protagonist of The Wind Rises, who is sort of quasi-fictional, quasi-real but the wind rises he's truly like i just wanted to make something beautiful right you know like whereas this is like oppenheimer nudity is doing absolutely he hears about people splitting atoms and he's like that could be used to make a he also hears about what's happening to the jews in europe absolutely and but i mean and nolan has acknowledged this because nolan's been hitting this kind of like he's the most important person who ever lived, right?

Nolan's acknowledged like, look, if Oppenheimer didn't exist, someone else would have thought to make an atom bomb. It's not like he was the only one. Well, yeah, no, they have that line in the movie that's like, what are you thinking? Oh, what every other scientist is thinking right now. Everyone had the same concept of, yes, you can create this gigantic energy reaction. Right, because not only does he find out about splitting the atom and he'd go, oh, you could use this to make a bomb. His first thought is they are going to use this to make a bomb so when you're right it's all from this defensive posture of like now we know what's possible someone's gonna be the one to well it's fascinating

that einstein and one other scientist wrote that letter right so it's the you're referring to the einstein i believe sizzle sizzle ard is the other uh Leo Sislard, the other scientist. But yes, they were both like, we just were in Germany not too long ago. We know who's over there and we're worried that they will develop atom bombs. We need to do a nuclear program. When you read American Prometheus, you keep waiting for, and then they all sat down and were like, but, you know,

what would the consequences be of us making this thing? And they don't really until afterwards. Yeah. I think it's because there's like, Because they were in, they were like, we have to beat the Nazis. And they were invigorated by like, we're creating, we're discovering.

And also people at that time just dump stuff into the river. And they didn't really think about it. People be dumping stuff no no but just like you're wondering like when will they grapple with this and you're sort of realizing as you're reading it like no they had no time or whatever they were just pushing it off they weren't really and of course they're also thinking about it more as like against the nazis like okay we'll be you know blowing up a nazi fucking military base but also they're all theoretical physicists they're all they're all scientists they're not in the military but theoretical is the big yeah where it's they don't know what it actually means where does this

go right yeah right heart and be practical i just kept thinking throughout this movie about that exit interview the guy did who was what the head of AI for Google and stepped down and wrote this letter that was like, we should all stop exploring this. And he basically said, I got hired onto this job and I thought, yeah, AI is probably the thing that will lead to our downfall in 80 years. And then through working on this for five years, I realized, oh, maybe it's more like 10. through working on this for five years, I realized, oh, maybe it's more like 10. And you're like, well, that's the whole thing right there, that he was exploring a field that he thought would probably be destructive ultimately. But the destruction for him was much further off and much more abstract. In the process of working on it, only too late possibly did he then recognize, oh, this feels immediate. I have pushed something along to a point I no

longer feel comfortable with. And now toothpaste out of the tube, can't put this feels immediate. I have pushed something along to a point I no longer feel comfortable with. And now toothpaste out of the tube. Can't put it back in. I can write a letter and tell people to stop, but they're not going to. Well, what a lot of people want to happen with AI is what Oppenheimer wanted to happen with nuclear weapons. He was basically like, we have to hand this over to an international multi-country committee that's in charge of stuff that will stop stuff from going wrong. Right. And that may well happen

with AI or may not, you know, but like, you know, that was his sort of plea post-war is like, let the United Nations take charge of this.

Like, you know, nuclear power can be used for good, blah, blah, blah. You know, no one listened to him or whatever.

People listened to him, but, you know, that's why obviously he was railroaded and silenced. He was eventually railroaded and that's why Clint Eastwood actually directed this movie. But, it's got both. Yeah, this that's why, obviously... He was railroaded and silenced. He was eventually railroaded and that's why Clint Eastwood actually directed this movie. It's got both.

Yeah, this is a great take Griffin had. To Marie and Marie's David. Yes, my David. The better David. No. He's a good David. I mean, he's my favorite David. I'm better than Ehrlich. I keep fucking drive-buying Ehrlich. I know. It's been a rough couple of weeks for him on this podcast.

Sorry, I love you, David. We love David Ehrlich. And play the Becker theme song for two seconds. No! Yes! Come on! No! I refuse.

David Gronson's score, very inspired by the Becker theme. Absolutely. You're probably wrong. Yes. What was your take? Your Clint-related take? Hanson would have fit perfectly into this movie He would have Put him right where Modine is

He could have been the James Remar part Didn't Becker wear a bow tie? No Becker doesn't He wears a bow tie later in Good Place Becker never wears a bow tie Becker is fucking unboughten Damn it I've been fucking brought up Yeah you did

What I was going to say I was saying to He might have had a time. I don't think he had a time. Damn it, I've been fucking brought up. Yeah, you did. Fuck you. What I was going to say, I was saying to Maurice David on the escalator down, he has pulled off the rare double late period Eastwood narrative, which, David, we always joke on this podcast. Yes, there's two kinds of Eastwood narratives. This guy was railroaded or I'm guilty, send me to jail. Yeah. Me personally.

Right. And this is a movie about a guy getting railroaded and when you go into his mind he's like i'm guilty send me to jail right so basically a hundred percent they did him wrong but also he's like i'm fucking garbage and i'll never get over just to get to the last thing in the movie yeah just to say it right now you know there's this big moment in the movie where jason clark is basically like lambasting him and almost everything in the scenes with jason clark out in the hearing yeah that's just what you're the dialogue is just the actual words that were said sure it's right from the record all of it i i just yeah including the kitty disses about his grammar oh yeah she fucking throws down she does absolutely i don't like your

phrase um but but i can i just quickly ask you because you read the book uh there was one plot hole i did not david david david sims read american prometheus i did there was one plot hole i could not get my head around at what moment in time did oppenheimer fuck jason clark's wife no jason clark is there because i know he fucks a lot of women who are married obviously jason clark and jason clark hates him and he plays a lot of cuts i was waiting for the connect witnesses a cucking metaphorically It just felt like it was personal for Clark Where there must have been

I just think it's like Clark is like Am I going to play a cuck? I wanted to write down cuck On a piece of paper and seal it Should have done that Nolan probably approaches Jason Clark Would you like to be in my film? Here's the script And Clark's flipping through through and he's like where who's who cucks me i don't

understand and nolan's like um oh i don't know you know come on come on i always get cucked in the movie you know my wife cheats on me come on and nolan's like no you're there to to investigate a cucking you know like it's you'll be methodically Going step by step A world of a cuckin A famous cuckage Several I forget, did you guys do this Nolan voice On the Nolan series?

This is new I've been watching a lot of him recently Your character is a low-T beta male He does not get cucked on camera He is a bit of a soy boy. What the hell was I talking about? I completely

lost my train of thought. The Chad Oppenheimer. No, you wanted to talk about the last bit of the movie with Jason Clarke. Oh, you know, and Clarke is reaming him out for essentially, like, why didn't you say anything then? If you're so fucking guilty now, if you're, you know, then why didn't you,

and it's this moment where Oppenheimer doesn't, he has his answer, but he doesn't really have an answer, and then, you know, Nolan starts to do the thing he does several times in the movie where you can hear, like, you know,

noises in his head of the bombing and all that. This movie's basically wall-to-wall music other than five moments where it cuts out and goes blank. Incredible. He builds it up to such a fever pitch that when he pulls it out it it really shocks you and that's the one

that's one of the moments for right yeah um but and then later kitty you know says you know speaks to the loudest like did you you know submit yourself to that because you wanted you know yeah someone to call you out essentially and i you know it's american prometheus nolan opens the title with a title card opens the title with a title card opens the film with a title card explaining the myth of prometheus like this is his promethean torture yes he is like you know he's putting himself through this is nolan's take right you know as a form of torture because he you know he feels he deserves it yeah and kitty basically says to him later like this isn't going to accomplish right this and it's like that's to him it's like, this isn't going to accomplish anything. And it's like, that's, to him it's like, I know, I just need to suffer.

Like, I've decided I need to suffer and this is the only way I know how. Now, that's a metaphorical take that no one has. Right. One of the scenes I keep going back to. Prometheus, you know, was chained to a rock and they, you know, bird would tear out his liver every day because he gave fire to humans, which

is, you know, Oppenheimer gave us fire, right? Yes. It's kind of an important thing, fire. Fire, very useful. Yeah, but also pretty quickly turned into a weapon. No, what do you mean? You make s'mores with it?

That's what Prometheus is saying. This is for s'more making only. That's what Oppenheimer did too. So we've created the bomb, but please only put s'mores. The idea is to make so many s'mores at once you could feed the world. The world's largest campfire. It's hard not. I'm trying to figure out what differentiates the Oppenheimer impression from.

What? From fucking Daniel Plainview. I have a. What is he saying? I have a competition in me. What if Oppenheimer said that about the Nazis? Yeah. What I was going to say. What were you going what were you a scene i keep on going back to because there are a couple scenes in this movie where i'm like that's the whole movie right there this is the

whole central tension that one is important it's quite powerful um no the scene where uh oppenheimer rides up on his horse in his long trench coat with his flat hat. He looks like a fucking cowboy, right? He's created this, like, David's finger is going up, which I think is a tiny bit inappropriate. He rides by in the rain, but it's like, it looks like a fucking unforgiving shot or something, right? And then he sees the flyer, basically, for, like, what is going to be the equivalent of a communist meeting amongst all the scientists. Within Los Alamos. Right. This whole movie, this guy's had this uncomfortable position of like,

he wants to be on the right side of history, right? And it's such a confusing time where it's like, what's the greater threat? Is it fascism? Is it communism? Is it neither? Is it both? He seems pretty concrete on the fact that fascism's bad. No, I think he was a fairly left-wing guy.

It's just that he didn't have the super conviction in the way. When Hartnett's like, you better stop this shit if you want to run the Manhattan Project. He's like, great. Stopped. I'll stop. Totally. And I do think he did, not in an intellectually dishonest way, but I do think the early part of the movie, he truly is like, I'm asking questions.

I agree that there's stuff that's not right. I'm trying to figure out what side I'm supposed to be on. He gave money to the right people. Totally. He was a good, you know, lefty. But the Spanish Civil War thing, he was just, it feels like he's like, well, these people are clearly suffering. They need my help. I'm not even getting invested in the larger part of this other than there are people

I could give my money to who could use it right now, right? And he's constantly like, well, but don't do too much. Don't be too loud. Might get in the way of your career. You gotta pick and choose you know all this stuff he's trying to apply strategy to all this shit right he sees this sign he's gotten punished before in his life for engaging in these conversations for going to these meetings these parties too much he's basically just got out in time to still have a career right so he sees this sign and he goes in there and you're like how is he gonna play this right is this gonna be like into a meaning don't you dare jeopardize this

right is he going to be uh is he going to consider their points right because they're saying like for the first moment let's step back and question is this bad if we let this happen right and you watch him play and i sort of expected the scene to play out of him being like, look, this is my job now. I'm in charge of this. We're too deep in. I need to just throw the spin that it will take to convince them to settle them down.

And he makes an argument that I think he genuinely, largely believes. Yeah. Where he's like, we need to do this once, so it will never happen again right this thing that was often said about like that was his his line a lot of the time right yeah yeah right and which is like sort of true until it's not true but he also was constantly reminding everyone that we're scientists we build it but we don't get to choose the military makes whatever

decision the military makes he has this passive passive like, you know, maybe somewhat simplistic thing. Like, hey, we're just making an invention. But this thing that comes up a lot in society where it's like, look, if I don't do X, then someone, not X, now I can't use that fucking letter. You can't. He doesn't own a letter. If I don't do Y, someone

else will do it. Elon Musk has bought Y. If I don't do Y, someone else will do it. They'll hire someone else to do it, right? And maybe that person has less scruples than I do. Maybe it's better for me to get into that room and I can at least try to direct a thing that's going to happen no matter what into a slightly better direction.

But then, like, what's one of the most powerful scenes in the movie? It's when he's in the room as he was while they're picking targets and James Remar coming in and look he doesn't actually whip out his dick like he did on Sex and the City. God bless him. Great moment for him. He sure does.

Yes he does. It's a great moment in Sex and the City. Do you know what his name is on Sex and the City? What? Richard. But he's you know he's playing the I believe he's playing Secretary of Defense. Yes. And he has that sort of chilling thing which apparently Remar found out himself and took to Nolan.

Right. Of like, this guy actually honeymooned in Kyoto. He would not want to. So he wouldn't want to bomb it. Yeah. So he's like, oh, so let's cross Kyoto off the list. You know, like in this way where you're like, Jesus Christ. And Oppenheimer's basically just like a fucking, you know, ham sandwich in there.

He basically says. He's Jewish. He's a bologna sandwich. No, but he says like 12 options. Strike that. Make that 11. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you don't know why he's striking one.

And you're just like, I guess he's going to move on from it. And then he sort of pulls his glasses down and like offers. Cultural significance. My wife and I honeymoon there. And everyone in the room laughs. And both times. They titter, yeah. We've seen the movie.

You hear the audience like suck in the breath and go like. yeah uh we've seen the movie you hear the audience like suck in the breath and go like it's horrible yeah um you know it's horrible yeah um and and like yeah and oppenheimer is you know uh not applying any muscle in that room obviously people are throwing out the question of like is it good to give a warning so that the civilians can leave and they're like well if you warn them, that question is disregarded within five seconds. Same with, like, why don't we just blow this up in a, you know, non, you know, just to show how it works and so they'll know or whatever. That's so much of, I think, genuinely, look, I don't think this movie is trying to exonerate Oppenheimer and I don't think he's innocent, right? Like, he is a deeply conflicted man.

He's investigating a complicated, inconsequential figure in history that is what the film is absolutely yes but I think there is that part of him that at moments genuinely believes if the test goes well they won't ever have to do it right because they'll be so impressed by the force of this thing right but he doesn't understand anything

and his knowledge of diplomacy is obviously just so basic yeah and he's kind of saying to groves like can we tell the soviets now yeah you know can we tell and he's like yeah sure and they tell ed potts damn basically what happened was truman said to stalin like we got like a really big bomb and stalin was like well hope you use it against the japanese and what we now know is that stalin already knew as this is revealed in it, you know, like that Stalin was getting info from Los Alamos. So we didn't have to tell him.

But like, I think Oppenheimer's clearly hoping like, yeah, we'll tell Stalin and everyone will be like, oh, okay, great. Back off. Let's not use those though. Right. Let's just talk about it. Right.

But when Oppenheimer's in a room like that, his whole fucking like kind of play acting, what do they call it? The great salesman of science. Right. This persona he's built completely crumbles in a room with guys who wield actual power, not the power of intellect, of actual skill, of knowledge. The ultimate superpower of guys like this are they're incredible strategic thinkers

and they don't give a fuck, right? They are just so confident in everything they say at every moment. They are not internally conflicted in the same way that james remar is just like i'm very i am happy to within the next two minutes pick which place we are going to decimate this is a decision we can make quickly before lunch by the way i'm removing the one place that means a little something to me you know it's all just like look let's just get this done with it's devastating devastating shit can we talk about some of the other actors in the movie yes who we have not yet mentioned who have we not uh david crum holtz oh chrome man sort of the closest thing the movie has to like a

conscience character you should eat something here. Oh, yeah. Thanks, Ben, for giving us all oranges. Sort of walking bubby. Yeah, Ben had a list of bits he thought of doing for this episode and wisely said we shouldn't do. One was wearing goggles the whole episode. Mm-hmm, like Benny Safdie. One was every 30 minutes taking out

a handkerchief and giving you an orange slice, David. That was a bit he thought. That actually sounds like something that should happen on every episode. He thought about prepping. David, you should eat something. Yeah, orange slice, David. That was a bit he thought. That actually sounds like something that should happen on every episode. David, you should eat something. Yeah, eat something, David. The whole thing about, he plays Isidore Robbie. Yeah. That guy fucking invented the microwave. That's the funniest thing about, like, a lot of these. You, like, click on

them and you're like, so, who was this guy? He's like, invented the fucking microwave. You like the microwave? Yeah. That's that dude. That guy. Yeah. So, speaking of the real... I'm the MRI. He invented the MRI. The real people in this movie. Also, you know, but it means I'm the MRI. The real people. I hate the MRI. In this movie. Also, you know, but it means you've invented the best set piece in Insidious 5. Carry on.

Go ahead. Oh, Jesus. Set inside an MRI. Really cool set piece. Cool. To prepare for Oppenheimer, I watched The Day After Trinity. Yes. Which is available on Criterion Channel.

If you have not seen it, you should check it out. It's really interesting. They have interviews with I.I. Robbie, and they also have interviews with, oh my God, what's his name? Michael Angarano, Robert Serber. And it's funny because Angarano's doing a voice. And you and I walking out the first time were like, I guess he just- I'm going to admit that Angarano is one of the few.

I did not totally clock him in this movie. I'll watch for him next time. Okay. Well, he's the one who, like, talks with a lisp. He, like, sounds like Daffy Duck. Yes. Right. But that's literally how the guy sounds.

Right. Marie, you were like, I guess he just came up with, like, a thing so that he'd stand out from the other guys. And then you watched this movie and you were like, oh, no, Griffin, that voice is 100% accurate. Yeah, it was wild. All right, who else? Who else?

Oh, who else do we need? We haven't really talked about Florence Pugh. We haven't talked about Florence Pugh. Yeah, this movie has a large cast. Oh, so I saw Oppenheimer before my fiance David did. And he's a big Oppenheimer guy. He too, like David Sims, has read American Prometheus and has a framed photo of J. Robert Oppenheimer in his office. I do not have a framed photo of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Which is interesting. I see him as a tragic hero. But it was so hard for me to keep from him for five days that I am become death, destroyer of worlds. Is red to boobs? Is red to boobs. Is red to Florence Pugh as she is mounting him and putting his penis inside of her. Well. That is a crazy choice.

It's a great way to read Sanskrit. I mean, I guess. Well, but like. It's kind of hot. Yeah. This guy's attitude towards sex does seem so wrapped up in like death and gloom yes like and like especially in the book you really get the sense of this guy of like i mean it's why you can met you can picture nolan picking this book up and it's like oppenheimer reedy blue, blue, piercing eyes, strange, aloof energy. Yeah. Kind of weird.

Equally hot and terrifying. And Nolan just going like, what's Killian's number? Like, you know, like this guy just screams Killian Murphy. Scrolling through his flip phone. One button click at a time until he gets down to the seas. We haven't really talked about Killian yet. We'll talk about it.

We'll talk about it. But, you know, like, I think, like, as much as this guy was a Randy boy who was sleeping with lots of people and fascinating is like the most sort of destructive you know and uh in intense figure in his romantic life yes and her death was so uh powerful for him and mysterious in its own right so speaking of her death yes so did you florence p plays this character in the film she's really in like four scenes yeah i would say she gets short shrift in a way, but like the film is also so packed. I don't really know how it's supposed to balance everything. She makes an impression. She makes a very big impression.

Yes. So I only really caught this the second time I saw it. Humble brag. The rubber glove. The rubber gloves. Yeah, man. Oh, yeah. It's, to me, very reminiscent.

So this film is very reminiscent memento to me in many ways yeah but the flashbacks and memento the frenzied kind of violence where you don't really know what's going on very similar to her death where which he didn't witness and was reported as suicide but then you see a flash of a glove at one point because maybe she was murdered by the government you don't know yeah she was a communist with ties to Oppenheimer, who is like, you know, seen as like a very unstable figure. I also think this movie is very similar to Memento thematically in it being about a guy who doesn't really know who he is

and doesn't really have a comfortable grasp on reality. I also, look, I mean, when Memento came out and Christopher Nolan was just a cute nobody who'd made a little movie at Sundance. Cute was the main word everyone threw at him. He's fucking cute. I think he's still cute. He's still cute.

He looks good. He watched those interviews with him around Memento time and you're like, he's a dashing young man, you know. And he talks about like how he presents the film and the color segments in Memento are subjective. Yep. They're from the perspective of Leonard. Yes. Yep. They're from the perspective of Leonard.

Yes. And you're entirely inside his head, which is what the color segments of Oppenheimer are. You're with Oppenheimer. Right. Yes. You're perceiving it as Oppenheimer perceives it. Yes. And then the black and white in Memento is objective.

Right. And there's a narrator, you know, and it's more like sort of traditional filmy noir it's the tobolowski thomas lyon stuff well there's that but no no there's there's two you know how memento flows where it's between you know and in the black and white segments it's like leonard being like in voiceover like you wake up in a room you don't know who you are here are the rules of how i work right and the color sequences you're in leonard's head yeah oppenheimer has the same gimmick. The black and white stuff, like with Strauss,

that's not from Strauss' perspective. Like, we're much more in like a classic documentary type perspective. I think it is from Strauss' perspective. No. Because like Strauss

is an unknowable figure at first and you're watching the movie and you're like, eh, you know, this guy is sort of like, yeah, I don't know what happened. Like, I don't know who, like, rolled him out of the bus. No, but that's my take is, you know, you think you're watching objective and then you find out, in fact, it is subjective.

It's just a different person subjective. No, no, by subjective, you're not in Strauss' head. You're watching someone watch Strauss. You're watching people investigate Strauss. And we're understanding him. Yeah. Yes. I mean, he has also, i'm just repeating nola i know

i know i just felt like the way he was framing it was maybe to try to obscure the the sort of narrative twist of the film what the strass was a bad dude that you're seeing a very uh uh weighted account of events based on this guy trying to manipulate history to his advantage. Sure, but, like, the sort of, like... Well, whatever. We don't need to, like, nip it in the bud. No, we don't. The Strauss stuff is peppered into the film pretty early, right? We're cutting to it pretty much right away. He sets up, like, four different narratives from the beginning,

which is the Strauss hearing, the Oppenheimer hearing, the sort of... And Oppenheimer's like life, like more straightforward life. What's the fourth? Is it just three? I guess you're sort of... It's a connection to Einstein. I think that's a really important element, too. That's, yeah, I'd say for the first chunk of it especially, you're sort of engaging with

Oppenheimer in a couple different time periods at once. Yeah, it's kind of between you know, pre-war and post-war. Right, but there's basically periods at once. Yeah, it's the cut in between pre-war and post-war. Right, but there's basically three main things. But then there's these black and white things, which is like Strauss, Alden Ehrenreich, who's the other guy, Scott Grimes in there maybe?

Is that who it is? I don't think Scott Grimes. The other guy? No. Scott Grimes is in this film. I just don't know who he played. There's another guy in there. Yes. Where they're prepping for Strauss' Secretary of Commerce hearing. Yes, I think you're film. I just don't know who he played. There's another guy in there. Yes. Where they're like prepping for his, Strauss' secretary of commerce hearing. Yes, I think you're right. I think it is.

And, you know, he's getting a little anxious of like, are they going to bring up this Oppenheimer stuff? And so, and they're sort of talking through like, what happened there, right? And so the first part of these segments are more expositional. It's more Strauss just kind of being like well you know blah blah blah blah like right this is kind of off the record him just explaining right what we think in good faith his interpretation of the events were and as it goes on you know

this is the thing that's not in the book this is not an american right this at all like the american primatist mentioned yes strass did. He talks about Strauss a lot. Yeah. And that he eventually got shot down, you know, by the Senate later as revenge, basically, for him fucking over Oppenheimer. But this is all imagined. The stuff that's in the Senate hearing is real. But this behind the scenes stuff is sort of like trying to give you an idea of Strauss, I think. Like we said, this personality. is sort of like trying to give you an idea of Strauss, I think. Like we said, this personality. And the framing of him as Oppenheimer's sort of shadow

is not a thing that the book is really foregrounding. The book is certainly, you know, yeah. Oppenheimer really pissed that guy off. Yeah. Because Oppenheimer was this arrogant, super charming in a way, you know, science celebrity. Charismatic. He was certainly compelling. And Strauss was this dil, super charming in a way, you know, science celebrity. Charismatic. He was certainly compelling.

And Strauss was this dilettante. He's not a scientist, but he was in charge of the Atomic Energy Commission. And Oppenheimer would kind of like playfully like slap him down in private and in public. Right. And it like builds this resentment, but it's on one side.

Oppenheimer's just like, I don't know, what? You know, where Strauss is like, that fucking guy won't stop needling me Won't stop thinking He's smarter than me Yeah Right And it's such a great

Performance by Downey When he finally like Unravels at the end In this like Seething monologue It was I was telling Griffin It was fun seeing Oppenheimer

So soon after re-watching Oldboy Sure Because like The reveal of the Like Revenge plot That is all in one guy's head that the other guy doesn't. The other guy's like, huh?

I don't even think about you. Right, right. And the cleverness of that Einstein where he's like, what do you fucking tell Einstein? He's poisoning him against me. They don't care about you. Aaron Ruck nails that moment so hard. He does a great job by Alden. Right.

Have you ever considered that maybe they were talking about something more important that day? And they were literally talking about the fact that the atomic bomb might have blew up the world. Which is. Yeah. What's so. I mean, I was about to say funny, but what I think is so interesting is you see that event three times. Right. You basically perceive from a distance from from Strauss's distance Oppenheimer and Einstein having this very quick conversation that Einstein walks away from looking completely despondent.

Einstein looks like a world away. Right. And Strauss strews on this as Oppenheimer said something to turn Einstein against me because when I walked over and he was walking away, he refused to acknowledge me. He gave me the commotion. He must have been shit talking. He broke my ass. And my read on it was like, I bet you're going to find out that Oppenheimer said something that was dismissive to Einstein.

Sure, he pissed off Einstein as well. That he was disrespectful to Einstein on a personal level. He dunks on him a couple times. He does, right? So I was like, that's what you're going to find out, is he says something really cutting to Einstein. No, he says the most cutting thing imaginable. About himself and the world.

We've maybe fucked up the world and humanity beyond repair. And also, Einstein says something completely devastating to him. I think we have. He says it as a definite statement. Yes.

That all of the, you know, you can be as much of a masochist as you want and people will forgive you and they'll give you a plaque, but it won't be for you. It'll be for them.

Absolutely. And that is devastating. And also, it it's like he is equally uncomfortable with both outcomes he hates being vilified and he hates being honored right right this guy is ruined he is ruined understandably because he did a fucking thing that's right i mean he cannot unshoulder himself no like you know yeah nor should he but it's like he's, in both scenarios, he looks as unhappy when he's in the fucking White House being handed that giant trophy and metal around his neck. Johnson gave him the Fermi Prize. Right, he looks miserable then as he does.

I mean, it's what might be the big scene in the movie is his speech he gives after, right. It's such a power, after the test. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of big scenes in this movie, but the first two hours are this race, right? Where the movie never lets up.

And it's almost like a heist movie of like, can they pull this off? We have to put the team together. Matt Damon on the train. And like, you know, I think it's crucial that the movie is moving so fast because you need the sense of like, no one is slowing down to think about what they're doing. Bill Garrow basically put it as like, it's the movie is basically like a three hour montage. Right. And then like once every 40 minutes it grinds to a halt in a way that gives you whiplash.

And then it starts up again and builds up steam the same way. And then there's the test itself which you know we can talk about more but like is a very arresting sequence. Sure. And then right after the test like you say he gives this speech which is a real speech he gave to the assembled people of los alamos who are cheering after they even the stuff about like if only we'd done it to the germans everyone's cheering but then the japanese didn't like it but the sound cuts out so all you can hear basically are you don't hear their cheering yeah you hear their chair squeaking You hear when they stand up.

I was losing my mind during this scene. I was truly, it really, you know, had a big effect. And when you cut to the Oppenheimer close-ups, the world is, like, vibrating around him, like the early scenes where he kind of can't process what he's able to see on a scientific level, right? And it's this thing of, like, when he's trying to be solemn, he feels uncomfortable. When he's trying to be solemn, he feels uncomfortable.

When he's trying to like, affect this sort of like, we did it, rah-rah, kind of like sensationalism in the speech, he feels uncomfortable. He's scanning over the crowd. He feels equally haunted by the people who are crying,

the people who are laughing. There are teenagers basically under the bleachers making out as if it was like after a fucking high school football game we see a woman's skin well that's in his face in his head he's imagining for the first time what it must have felt like on the ground but like what he's literally seeing is cheering screaming laughing crying making out vomiting and all of it is equally disturbing you him. And, you know, the... The stomping of the feet. The stomping, you know, the noise of that.

Basically, all you're hearing are their feet, right? You hear when they stand up, you hear when they stomp, you hear when they, like, shift around in their chairs, and that's the only sound effect he's hearing. Am I wrong that we also kind of hear sounds of war and people screaming? Yeah, you're hearing what he... It's like such an onslaught.

Because, obviously, we don't see the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki in this film. We don't see, you know, footage, because he wouldn't have seen footage. He hears about it on the radio. Right. There's one sequence, which is how he would have heard about it.

Yeah. There's one sequence where there's like a slideshow. It's on Hiroshima's character. The Angarano's character goes to Nagasaki in Hiroshima and... Takes pictures. Takes pictures, talks to the victims of the bomb and brings back evidence of what the bomb did. As like an anthropological study, like almost dispassionately. But like you can see the Oppenheimer can't even look at it.

Like, you know, he's struggling to even look at the sides. Those photos are really disturbing. Yeah, they're insane, obviously. It's a completely insane thing that we did. And, you know, people argue, is this movie insensitive by not actually showing us these things, by putting it so much in the headspace of this one man? Right. To not actually grapple with how terrifying

the reality of this imagery was doesn't really make the full weight of the consequence lay in people's minds. I think these are photos that exist out there, have existed for many, many decades. These are stories that have been covered in many different mediums. The consequences felt in this film yes but i think beyond that him not engaging with it is important i agree like i agree that's a point the movie i think that's

huge but also marie you asked me immediately afterwards you said what do you think about that decision to not show it right right and i said i think you're really in a double-edged sword situation if you're Nolan, right? Aside from the fact that just narratively for the story he's telling, yes, that guy doesn't even want to look at it because he can imagine it, right? So he doesn't want to look into the eye of what he created. There's also like the Trinity test is this moment.

It's terrifying, but it's also a moment of real spectacle. It's exciting. Yes. You know, you're tense and nervous and, you know, it's also a moment of real spectacle yes it's exciting yes you know you're you're tense and nervous and you know it's incredible moment yeah it would be like spectacle again you know to depict that you know like and i think it would be like kind of queasy spectacle that was my entire take to maria is i'm like he's got two choices one is to replicate it in some way which then gets kind of gross where it's like you are kind of giving people eye candy because you're like, wow, look at the makeup. Look at the effects. Even if it's to the ends of trying to shock and horrify, it still becomes movie magic.

Right. Or you do what some films do, which is like you reuse real footage or real imagery, which feels very exploitative to me. Well, but and again, I just feel like he's like, we're with this guy. Yeah. And this guy wouldn't have seen anything on TV because that just wasn't a thing in 1945. I just think there's no way to show it on screen that isn't actually insensitive to the actual victims. Well, the one girl that we see Oppenheimer imagine.

Right. Her sort of skin flaking. Is that Nolan's daughter? That's Nolan's daughter. That's crazy right well look another comparison to park chanwook you know our current guy he's like i made this movie for my daughter and i'm like you made this movie for your daughter you sick asshole yeah i mean beautiful crazy person but it's i think there's something to like nolan is filming the destruction of the

person who means as much to him as anyone in his life 100 like that the emotional consequence of it right the movie doesn't give you that context but there's some feeling that comes across in like of the person who means as much to him as anyone in his life. 100%. Like the emotional consequence of it. Right? The movie doesn't give you that context, but there's some feeling that comes across in like a, yes. On a cellular level. I mean, Barbie does a similar thing to very opposite effect where at the end of that movie, without spoiling things for people,

there's a montage of like home video footage. And Greta Gerwig talked about that that's all home video footage from people who worked on the movie, like the crew and the cast. It's lovely and the cast yeah totally and she said I think there are things you can put in a film that even if they're not expressed overtly you can feel it in the sort of DNA that this is personal right and this comes from someplace honest and whatever and I think he's doing the same thing which is like I I'm gonna film this differently if it's my own daughter you know because this is as exciting to me as it could be to anyone.

Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think you're right. But then again, maybe he actually thinks Oppenheimer is good and that the bombs were good. No, I'm joking. He liked the bomb. No, you have basically from that scene on the speech, this recurring visual motif of like the blinding light on Oppenheimer. Everything going white.

Yes. this recurring visual motif of like the blinding light on everything going white yes because the moment of the test where there's the flash and no noise yeah and you hear the noise later which is how it would have been yeah is so like spellbinding as well this is a very analog movie nolan you know i think abhors having any digital process on his film he thinks it looks fake right and and he has had films before that have a hybrid. Even when he shoots on film, if you're incorporating digital effects, then at some point you have to put it

in a digital editing system. You have to color correct digitally, whatever. This was a movie he never wanted going onto computers, right? Just everything done photochemically.

He even talks about he's like anti-wigs. He like wants as little fakery as possible, I think. Right, yeah. But there are certain effects in this movie

that I think are so impactful. And they're very simple. He's not, like, trying to overthink them, right? But just, like, in the way of just, like, you know what?

Just flashing a really bright light on Cillian Murphy's face is going to speak volumes. And I think the thing they do at several moments in the movie where he basically cuts himself into imagining him in this scene that someone else is describing to him. When David Dastmanchian comes up to him and talks

about being in a fighter pilot. In a plane and watching a V2 rocket go over. That moment is so shocking though, when he's suddenly sitting in the cockpit with him. All those little moments, like when Florence Pugh is sitting on him in the in the hearing thing that people have dinged as being goofy and i know what i think that's like a devastating incredible moment and it's also just like for nolan to like do that is so unusual like he doesn't break form like that no really no like and for him to suddenly start playing with like that kind of like fantasy in reality is very. But I also think like on a very simple level, he's getting at something which is like when someone describes having sex with someone to you or even acknowledges that it happened, your brain flashes to imagining the visual for a second. Like when does that not happen? Right.

Like, when does that not happen, right? So even in this very staid, boring conference room where Emily Blunt is going to be so deeply embarrassed to hear him acknowledge out loud, yes, we did have intimate relations, it's not like he's describing physical acts. It's her greatest fear is they're now all thinking about it. They all know it. That's the thing he's trying to write.

Yeah, you know, like, this guy has dragged this into this room and making me listen to it. He says to her, I didn't say anything that you didn't already know. And she went, like, all of them know now. Yeah, like, I didn't, it's different. Right, it's like, they're all thinking about him having sex with this woman now, and she's looking at them thinking about him having sex with that woman. And looking at her and thinking about how it affects her and how embarrassed she is.

And that's when Jason Clarke was like, okay, I get it, I will do your movie. I'll do your cuck movie. Right. But then said like, but when was I married to Florence Pugh's character? I just, we're missing that one scene.

if it helps you to understand the movie better, fine, you were married to her as well. I thought about a thing. Our friend Richard Lawson said in a conversation many drinks in

on a very unrelated subject many months ago. Trolls? My trolls. He said my trolls. They're out of control. I never should Trolls? My trolls. They're out of control. I never should have brought them into this world. I feel like there's blood on my hands. He said that to Harry Truman once.

We were talking about people who were perhaps characteristically similar to the Florence Pugh character in this film. Sure, sort of like wild, interesting, but unstable. Right. And he said, like,, interesting, but unstable, you know, right. And he said, like, the captivating thing

about people like that is they just tell you exactly who they are immediately. And even if who they are is terrifying and you know it's going to be harmful to you,

there's something really hard to resist in that. And I think when Oppenheimer is this, like, constructed man... So, are we talking about Princess Poppy

when you were talking about... Yes, absolutely. We were talking about Princess Poppy. Well, Branch is the one who's really hiding his true self. That's true. If you've seen the troller, the troll's trailer, which I'm calling the troller... Jesus Christ. ...for Trolls Band Together, we find out that Branch, the most cynical and dour of all trolls,

was, in fact, once a member of a boy band. Wow. The actual adult point I was about to make was that Oppenheimer's this constructed man, right? He's sort of an act to a certain degree. And he's made of Lego. He's made of Lego. And he's like going through this world

trying to make sense of other people who are putting on airs and this and that. And here's this woman who just cannot hide what she thinks and who she is at any moment. He interiorizes everything. Right. He's all inside and she is, look at my boobs. I'm out here.

I am saying things and getting up from bed to look at your bookshelf and neg you about it. Quick thing, while we're talking about women in this movie, getting up from bed to look at your bookshelf and neg you about it you know uh quick thing while we're talking about women in this movie there is one thing i just want to say and what's that i want to i mean well it's not going to be me it's going to be filmmaker barbie voicing this opinion um i'm marie bardy will say that i believe oppenheimer is a masterpiece five stars it's great however film director barbie will say that he is not beating the can't write women allegations. Emily Blunt, the fucking, the one complaint I have about this movie. If you put him on trial, he'd be like, I'm guilty.

Yes. I mean. We can't write women jail. When Flint makes his movie about Chris Nolan, that's, yeah. I mean, every scene she's got a drink in her hand. Look, look, look. And I guess she was an alcoholic in real life. When you read the book, that's her vibe.

Who were you saying? Kitty Oppenheimer. Kitty Oppenheimer. Oh, okay. Yeah, subtle. Super subtle. Yeah. Got it.

I mean, look. Ben's big takeaway walking out of the theater, he went, I don't know if you guys know this, but they used music a couple times. Yeah. And then he said, and did you guys notice she was always drinking those beer goggles she had were crazy three sheets to the wind all the time she certainly did have kids and then later going i don't know what to do with this fucking thing and someone else take care of it in the movie it's played a little bit like lucille bluth it's a little comical yes yeah i think she was kind of

a firecracker god bless her yeah that stuff is just so the horse is powerful you're like i get it you know and there are moments where she where the right after florence pew dies and she's like get yourself together you're not and he's out in the uh out of the desert and that's that's fantastic and her know, showcase of grammar. Shutting down Jason Clarke, yes. Yes, are both fantastic, but all of the little, like, you know, it's a little, her performance is a little mannered. I don't know if it's a her performance thing

or if it's the way the character's written or what. It just, it rubbed against film director Barbie in a way that, you know. You know, I like that I do feel like she's kind of doing a Barbara Stanwyck thing and that she's sort of doing a performance of the way that women acted in movies. She's a bit of a spiky forties dame. Right.

I love Emily Blunt. I'm very pro Emily. Let's put it bluntly. We'd love her. Is she a mannered actress? I don't know. I guess not. I guess this is more.

I think she can fit. Mannered. Right. Yeah. She's pretty versatile. Yes really seen a lot like it's like her last few years it's like jungle cruise of those things where i'm like you've done your best here i don't know it's not a bad performance it's been an oppenheimer moment of did this need to be what have we done right like the last time i've truly loved her is fucking answer tomorrow like ever since then i've always just been like i am pro blunt always right Right. Like, the last time I've truly loved her is fucking Edge of Tomorrow.

Yeah. Like, ever since then, I've always just been like, I am pro-Blunt always. Right. But often kind of like, well, I'd love to see you doing it. All those performances you listed, I watched Jungle Cruise and I was like, damn, she's really fucking good. She's good in it. That movie, I'm just like, to what end? Yeah.

I remember feeling the same way during Into the Woods where I'm like she kind of can do anything what a shame that it's in service of this film Sicario she's good in but that movie Sicario I think she's pretty phenomenal but the movie then jumps her horribly I think that's the point I agree but nonetheless that is what's

happening to Emily Blunt the actor she's great in Quiet Place and you know in Huntsman Winter's War, she fought the war. She was the ice queen. I mean, I like her when she's tough and prickly, like she is in Edge of Tomorrow and Devil Wears Prada and Looper.

And you know, she's like, I like that mode. And I think she's trying to channel that in this movie. But for some, it just didn't. That's the only piece that felt not perfect. I just kicked down my batarang. I was sitting on my desk. Swear to me, Oppenheimer. I'm a grown up.

Why didn't Batman interrogate Oppenheimer? He should have. Swear to me. We would have been over and done with in 45 minutes. No, you know, the Nolan dead wife trope, right?

This wife is alive! Yeah, absolutely. This has a dead mistress. It's a very different story. I have always, Christopher Nolan has always struck me as someone

who in his movies expresses things that he maybe could never express with his own words, right? Not that the man is not in touch with his own feelings or lacks interiority. Sure. But it does feel like movies are very therapeutic for him. And you're finding out a lot of what he finds interesting and what scares him and all of that. It makes a lot of sense that he's been with the same woman for the majority of his life. He has many children with her. She is his producing partner

in all films, and he seems most terrified in the world of the idea of his wife dying. That is like the scariest thing he could possibly imagine. So you're saying that all his dead wives are actually just a really sweet reflection on his own living wife? To a certain degree. That is a very

interesting reading. I don't think that makes up for the fact that he greatly underserves his female characters because he makes them serve as plot functions for his greatest fear rather than letting them exist as people. And I do think... Who's the best Nolan lady? I was just thinking this. I think Catwoman is good. I think Murph in Interstellar. Love her.

Because she is not a wife. She is a daughter. No, she rules. She's the best. But I also think like Carrie-Anne Moss in Memento is better than most of the ones. That's a really clever femme fatale character. It's his best of the femme fatales.

Well, I just, whatever. Let's not talk about his dead wives too much. What were you going to say? I like the idea of Marion Cotillard in Inception so much, even though she is the prototypical dead wife because she is literally dead for the whole movie.

I'd bump on it less if she was the only example of that in his film. Because the idea of like, what if something happened to you that haunted you and then you were a person who lived inside your own mind,

she would always be there being like, remember me, bitch? The concept of that character I think is really cool. I'm about to ask a very controversial question okay has she given a good performance in english marion couture uh i think several yes like what well i think she's amazing in public enemies maybe you don't agree but i love that performance i don't remember her performance well well i

fucking love it and I like the question. I like her in Allied a lot. Allied is my favorite American, or my favorite English language couture, but her best performances are in French. Yes. No question.

Obviously. Right. Yes. Rust and Bone, in my mind, is her best. Rust and Bone is phenomenal. Two Days, One Night, she's amazing.

I think she's really good in The Immigrant. That's an English- Assassin's Creed. What are we talking about? Assassin's Creed. Oh, sorry, you're right. Zapper.

No, that language is not written. That was not Immigrant. That's an English- Assassin's Creed. What are we talking about? Assassin's Creed. Oh, sorry, you're right. The Apple. No, that language was not written in English. That was written in fucking- Creedies. Wingdings. How dare you? That was a good joke. It was a good joke. Immigrant's English language.

Yeah, Immigrant. She's in a lot of movies. She plays foreign characters in English movies well. Right. She came in and she's like, hey guys, I'm from New York City. I'm still waiting for her

to play Adam Sandler's wife in a movie. That's the one I'm waiting for. Baby, why are you so sad? What did David Spade say to you? Eh, he called me a loser. I re-watched Inception

over the weekend. Come to bed. Don't play video games. I don't know. I don't want to have sex with you, man. I don't know. Come on. Our politics have sex with you, Mary. Come on. Our politics are probably kind of similar.

Horseshoe saving. I just put these basketball shorts on. I don't want to take them off. Jet fuel cannot melt. You're so funny, Mary. You love the New York Jets. I love to talk about jet fuel. Yeah, but I would not couple you.

Sorry. Great. Serious episode. No bets. Go on, Marie. No, I rewatched. What have we done? I'm off in Heimer.

Glasses shaking. I just rewatched Inception this weekend, a movie that I had only seen once in theaters. That's crazy. I mean, you know. Forky did recently. She was like, what's that movie i hate that you love and i was like it could be a lot of movies she's like the one where like leonardo dicaprio is in dreams and i'm like yeah well i do love that movie and i suppose you do hate it uh i remember liking it at

the time yeah uh because that was you know part of the the time in my life where i was a student at new york university's tish school of the arts david's pointing pointing at barbie yeah barbie film school barbie she's saddled with debt oh my gosh film school barbie went to chapman oh yeah all right uh but uh and i went with a group of like 20 people there There were no assigned seats at the Lincoln Square IMAX. So you had to go like five hours in advance. Riding your horses in. People brought board games. I do remember that where you just were like, well, I'll show up three hours early, I guess.

And it was for the midnight screening on Thursday night. We used to be in a proper country. Things were clearly better then. So I remember my experience of seeing Inception as like a proper country. Things were clearly better then. So I remember my experience of seeing Inception as like a fun event. I did not, I remembered the hallway flight

and the totem, token is a totem. Only I know the exact weight, size of the little guy. That's why we were talking Inception, me and my wife, because Joseph Gordon-Levitt was on Sesame Street.

Carry on, continue. She was like, what happened to this guy? Only I know the exact weight of this cookie. Ah, give me that cookie. Go on. Well, just real quick,

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I had like a really weird experience recently where I was watching The Wind Rises, but I was watching the dubbed version. Oh, yeah.

And I didn't know it was him. And I was like, this guy's got a sexy voice. Who is this? And I looked it up and I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess Joseph Gordon-Levitt's got a sexy voice. Who is this? And I looked it up and I'm like, oh yeah, I guess Joseph Gordon-Levitt

does have a sexy voice. Only I know the exact weight of this murder plan. Of this voice? What about Inception? I did not like it. What? What the fuck is the matter with you?

Out! I'm sorry. David, David, David, David. Film School Barbie can take over. David. I bet she liked Inception. Why didn't you like it? I just got bored. It was like a lot of

exposition. Yes. It's like reading the most exciting instruction manual of all time. It's the best. But the best thing about Inception is it's like the first act is Leonardo DiCaprio being like, here's the instruction manual. And then, you know, Elliot Page reads it. He's like, you know, I get it.

And then he keeps being like, I have more pages from the instruction manual, actually. And they all contradict the he's like you know i get it and then he keeps being like i have more pages from the instruction manual actually and they all contradict the other parts you know like it's so good i i think the action and the like the last third is really fun yeah but the middle killian murphy who we should talk about in this movie crying yeah yeah And Pete Costner waits Dead Beth? Yeah. Dead Beth. I need to go home and lie down. Deathbed. Yeah. I mean,

no, I wouldn't say it's like a total stinker. None of Nolan's movies are stinkers, but I was looking at my phone a lot. What about the

Inception episode we did where we had a podcast within a podcast? That was a classic episode of Playtime. That sounds great. Well. I think great. Well. I think dreams are cool.

I would like to, you know, go through them. What about the meme of Leo squinting? You wouldn't have that without Inception. You wouldn't have that without Inception. I'm just going to, you know, put on my little nerd hat and say I prefer paprika. That's fair. I will always find the comparison people make

between those two masterpieces a little baffling. Well, I will always find the idea that Nolan ripped off paprika to be very strange, given as someone who loves paprika and has seen it so many times, they're not that similar, apart from the very basic concept of going inside people's dreams.

David, right now, are you hearing people going like this? Yes, I am. I know that's going to make people crazy because people don't agree with that point. And I've never quite, as someone who's watched Paprika many times, I've never quite understood. But whatever.

Okay. Our friend Sedant, a past and future guest, has been, wrote some very good pieces in the lead up to Oppenheimer, but also has been reposting all his pieces on Nolan over the years,

who's a filmmaker. He's followed closely and written about a lot. And he threw out a term in one of the pieces, I forget, about just like, and it's, you know, I think it could have been perceived as a side swipe, but I don't think it was. He was almost saying like, it is secretly one of the things that makes him really interesting.

He mentioned his distinct lack of imagination right right there's this thing where nolan is a guy who wants to make sense of things he's not going on flights of fancy he's trying to like solve them in this way that's very similar to all the scientists in this movie who are sitting down and just trying to crack the code it's the reason why like you know the dark knight being a movie that kind of broke Hollywood for a while, like, how does everyone replicate this? And the thing that we forget now, because we're thankfully kind of out of it, was like the seven

or eight years of blockbusters being really fucking dour and self-serious and gritty and realistic where they were all trying to copy the Nolan thing, but it was an affectation, right? It was like a posture versus Nolan being like, I need to create a Batman

that makes sense to me. Like he fundamentally rejected a Batman that felt fanciful, not as some sort of like hook, but as like... Everything needs to have some practical sense. Right.

That's just how he thinks through things. It's like he's working on a proof, right? And I think this movie is him similarly just trying to like get to... How do I come up with answers for questions that are unanswerable right but that are beyond that like movies that are

about a movie that is about circumstances when people are asked questions where the effect of how they answer at that moment is so great where you really have to think about the weight of how you respond i think inception the obvious like kind of slam on it is, like, for me about dreams, it should be a lot fucking wilder. That's often been the slam. And I've been like, well, bitch, these are Christopher Nolan's dreams. Exactly. And he dreams like an architect. Exactly.

And, like, this guy cannot put a single thing on screen that is not a reflection of his worldview. Which is, for better or worse, what we find interesting about directors. I also find the imagery in Inception satisfyingly surreal in many ways. I do, too. Thank you. You know what? Drag me all over town. Ben's raising his hand.

Okay. Let's wrap up the episode. Killian. Yes. Yes. So we tabled that and it's sort of

an important ad. Obviously, he's worked for Mr. Nolan many times. This is the fifth. This is sixth. Sixth. Sixth time

he's done three Batman. Inception, Dunkirk this. Correct. Okay. He's wonderful in all is sixth. Sixth. Sixth time he's done three Batman. Inception, Dunkirk this. Correct. Okay. He's wonderful in all those films. Agreed. He's great in the Batman movies, obviously.

His part in Dunkirk is so powerful. Yeah. Pretty astonishing in that film. And honestly, he's kind of the emotional fulcrum of Inception, too. Like, you know, in this stealth way that you don't even realize. He's got the best eyes in the biz. Yeah. Obviously, we talked plenty about him in our Boyle series

recently. It's a big year of Killian for us. Because we talked about 28 Days Later and Sunshine which are also... I think Sunshine's going to get an

Oppenheimer bump. I do too. As long as it's available for people to watch. If they make that movie legal again. He's joked about

I guess I read Physicist because I keep playing Physicist. It's a tough performance good at staring into blindingly bright lights you know like yeah robert downey jr who's tremendous in this movie and obviously there's just also the incredible excitement of watching him he's fucking uncork it yeah like literally right going like hey i had this bottle of champagne in my fridge. It's been here for like 20 years. He's been serving you wine coolers for the last 10 years, and they taste good and they get you drunk.

And he has like slam dunk kind of thunderous moments where you're like, wow, this is going to resonate for the whole year. Killian's not getting those moments because that's the character he's playing, the arc he's serving. Donnie Jrr keeps on i i think the bigger star keeps like dumping roses at this guy's feet you know but also the bigger stars in this movie on their press uh tours that all happened right before the strike yeah uh sometimes they were in solo sometimes they were paired up with killian and regardless of whether

he was there or not next to them they basically all keep on using the fact that they're the bigger name to say like by the way this guy gives maybe all keep on using the fact that they're the bigger name to say like by the way this guy gives maybe the performance of a generation right like they're just like it's insane watching him work was insane watching the final product was insane and i was like are they a danger of over hyping this thing when you watch it you understand what they're reacting to which is this guy just has to fucking maintain this hum for like three hours of movie and three hours of movie that whip around so wildly in time and place that he's doing so many like tiny scene fragments right where it's 10 seconds of him at a blackboard in a time that they'll never return to you know

yeah 30 seconds of him saying two sentences to one person with you know ripple effects that will like a puddle and they keep having this imagery effects that will, like, a puddle. Right. They keep having this imagery, obviously, of the ripples and the puddle. He gets big scenes, but the guy never has catharsis. The guy never has the blow-up. Right. He's just got to hold this thing for, like, three hours where you're just, like, the concentration of this performance is astonishing to me. The restraint of it.

Right. Yeah. The catharsis you're getting is like Strauss melting down at the end of the film. Totally. Is Kitty, you know, demolishing the King of Cucks and then later, you know, refusing to shake Teller's hand, Benny Safdie's hand, you know.

Right. Those moments are powerful. Every moment. But they're not Oppenheimer's moments. Right. I mean, Florence Pugh has four scenes each of them is incredibly emotional right right right she's she's giving this big you know damon won't stop yelling god bless him i wish she'd yell at me in bed but in our marriage bed

kelly murphy just has to do like three hours of this and have have you believe which i think he does in every single frame of this movie the shit going on in this guy's mind is impossible to comprehend right he also communicates enthusiasm well like if he was my science teacher i'd probably enjoy myself and i think like the way he's described in the book and the movie is like he was this really good because there's this moment where damon's like why don't you have a nobel prize like i want you to be in charge of this but but like, you're not even like the leading physicist in this field. And he apparently was just really good at like summarizing people's arguments, pushing

the thing forward. The great salesman of science is what they say. Carrying the ball. Yeah. You know, like, and you, whenever, he seems the most alive in those scenes of lots of people batting stuff around. That thing where he's got one pupil and he's like, don't worry when they find out what we're doing in here

and you see this sort of time lapse of, yeah, the room filling up and him becoming a fucking rock star. Yeah, I'd fuck him.

Yeah. I'd fuck everyone in this movie. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

My single favorite like sort of line reading he has in the film is when Damon's interviewing him and he goes, you want to know the best quote

I got about you? It's Oppenheimer couldn't even run a hamburger stand. And he laughs and he goes, I couldn't. Yeah, right. That's not my, uh, that's not my field. Right. He doesn't push back on it at all. Right. And then he just gets up and explains to him what he understands better than anyone else in the world. Man, they're back and forth, those two.

They have a bunch of scenes that are so, like, I mean, the standout is when right before the test. Yeah. Where they're like, if this doesn't go. Right, where they're talking about, like, what if it blows up the world. If this doesn't happen, though, our careers are ruined. Right.

Well, so maybe the world would blow up. But they're, right. Which is obviously, that's the theory thing. Where he's like, what can I give you? It's fucking theory. Like, you never know. But there is, yeah, there is also, you know, the marbles being being put in the jar of like, we only have so much plutonium. Yes.

Every time, if this doesn't work, we just blew a lot of our plutonium. We don't have more. There's also that scene where he invites Damon over for steamed clams and then he accidentally overcooks them. And so he has to sneak out the window to Krusty Burger and buy hamburgers and then pretend that they're steamed. He's doing the Simpsons.

Yeah. It's an upstate New York thing. Quickly, just some other actors. I had like a Vince McMahon meme reaction. Let's run down. Okay. Run down the list. So the three actors I did not know were in this movie.

Sure. Oh, no, sorry. Four. Okay. Or let's say I knew they were in the movie. I did not know who they were playing. Sure. And also so many people were in the cast.

That's that some people you're like, maybe I knew that at one the movie, I did not know who they were playing. Sure. And also, so many people were in the cast of this that some people you're like, maybe I knew that at one point and forgot. Wait, maybe it is three. Oh, no, it's four. Okay, number one. Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr. Great, great use of just,

like, Kenneth as the new Michael Caine. I was going to say. Yes. Right. I mean, I was... This is his third Nolan movie in a row. Michael Caine seems kind of soft retired. Doing a weird voice.

Yeah, he's... God bless him. He's really good, seems kind of soft retired. Doing a weird voice. Yeah. God bless him. He's really good, actually, because he's got the two crucial scenes. Yes. I thought his, is that supposed to be a Danish accent? Yeah. Sounded a little like Christopher Walken. He is a Danish physicist.

Yeah, Niels Bohr, the Great Dane, we called him. Woof, woof. We all used to call him that back in the day. Yeah. So Branagh showing up doing a funny voice, playing Niels Bohr, lost it. I did not realize that Casey Affleck was in this movie. Okay. Playing a terrifying character.

He is incredible. And he is so well deployed. Yeah. He's such a little seething weasel of a fucking, you're immediately like, oh my God, this guy goes home and jerks off about like communist dying. Yeah. And you contrast the way that Damon describes him. What did he tell you? oh my god this guy goes home and jerks off about like communist dying yeah like and you can't describe what he's like wait you talk to that fucking guy and you're cutting to like a very

reserved casey affleck but just scary with his like baby voice yeah he just looks like he constantly shaves the character i mean he's like so close yeah i mean that was that was very and i think that is the second most unnerving scene. There's a lot of unnerving scenes. The way they describe this guy, though, you're picturing like Sergeant Rock, and then they keep on cutting back to Casey Affleck, and it makes them all the scarier to have them be like,

this is the fucking worst guy alive. Yeah. Maybe second worst, Hitler's still alive at that point in the movie. Go on. Third person, Truman. Gary Oldman showing up as Truman. I mean, I think a slam dunk performance.

Yeah. And David and I disagree strongly on Darkest Hour movie. I dislike in a performance I dislike. Wonderful film, great performance. And this, he's going similarly big, but I think it really works. He's basically using the same glasses. It really works.

I mean, the pupils are so big. He's really good. That's right out of history, obviously, that Oppenheimer went to Harry Truman to kind of plead his case. I'm reaching out my handkerchief and waving it in your fucking face. And then unfold the handkerchief.

A nervous breakdown. There's an orange slice. Well, thank you. I'm hungry. Had a nervous breakdown in front of the president, in a soft way, at least. And the president basically Had a nervous breakdown in front of the president, in a soft way at least. And the president basically, you know, Truman basically had this reaction of like, one, I'm the one who made the decision, crybaby. Right. And two, like, I was hoping you'd come in and be like, hey, yeah, I got some more atom

bomb ideas for you. You know, like, not like this whole, like, the blood on my hands. Right. Get the fuck out of my office. But also, like, Truman's, like, sort of folksiness is as much of a western fellow as like oppenheimer's weird dark cowboy physicist thing you know like all these guys have these personas they bake on in the same way that damon's whole thing is like i'm just a gruff military man i don't understand science at all he went to mit he knows everything they're fucking talking about

at least in a basic sense he's fascinated by all that stuff. But he like wants to play dumb. He's got a cowboy streak as well. And like, you know, he's trying not to hide that. Yeah. And then the fourth was Rami Malek, who. So he's really well used. He is introduced early on and doesn't say a goddamn word. He's in two scenes where he basically doesn't speak, where he's just like part of a gang of scientists who are there.

Yeah. And I truly was like, there's no way he's not using Malak. He's got to do something with it. So I was wondering what it's going to be, but I think it's so important. One, because Malak does a great job with that scene, the speech he gives. And two, because you're just, the minute you see him,

you're like, fuck, he's actually, right, he was there the whole time. Because the whole conceit of him is that Strauss is like, Hill, who's that again? He won't be mean to me. I don't even remember who that guy is. He wasn't at Los Alamos. He was in Chicago with Fermi. The Chicago Pile, it was called. The first nuclear reactor, essentially.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's kind of crazy, too, that all of these, like, scientists were just chilling around fucking radiation constantly. I mean, it wasn't great for them. I don't think it was good. No.

No, not at all. No, Rami's got big eyes. Yeah. He's got some jeepers peepers. I don't know. And when his role is basically to have you take notice of the fact that he is watching things.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. Great point. Yeah. That he's witnessing events. The billing of this movie, you had the big five above the title on the poster. Murphy, Blunt, Damon, Downey, phew.

Right. Downey taking the fourth spot. Because it's alphabetical after Killian. Yeah. And then we were like, who else is going to get single card in this crazy cast, right? It's a crazy cast of Nolans. And you're like, it's Josh Hartnett. Yep.

And then it's the three Oscar winners. Affleck, Malick, Branagh. Yeah. As you pointed out, this film has five Oscar winners in it. Yep. Those three plus Damon and Branagh for screenplay. No, it's, sorry, it's, yeah,

Damon, Affleck,ik brana and uh who's the fifth uh oldman oldman who's not uncredited but is buried in the list or whatever yeah um some other i'm just going to so blunt we talked about damon we love that performance i assume just so damon i i said this to you in blank though you didn't respond i didn't say to you i said it in blank okay you keep saying about damon i didn't say it to you. I said it in blank dough. You keep saying about Damon, I want to climb him like a tree. Is he tall? He is pretty tall. Affleck is really tall.

He's talking about the hefty Damon. I climb all around him. I climb like a spiral. More like a mountain. Taller than Murphy in Downey. Damon had a bit of a fallow period in his career around when like you know the fifth jason bourne movie and the great wall you know where it was sort of like you know it's kind of like what's what's his what's his move

here now right you know what are we doing damy like you know and the last five years or so let me start with here fucking im IMDb sucks so fucking hard. I mean, Stillwater, which I still think is maybe his best performance. Stillwater is great. That's what I'm saying. Okay. So you're saying, well, I mean, The Martian is amazing. But then like post-Martian, you know, it's Jason Bourne, Great Wall, Downsizing, which I think he's really good in.

Love him. But that movie doesn't connect. It connects with me hard. I like Downsizing. It's a good movie. It's a good movie. American masterpiece. But then post that, Griff,

he does his little SOTY cameo in Unsane, which is really good. And similar kind of SOTY pop in... No Sudden Move, which is amazing. But his big roles, Ford versus Ferrari, Stillwater, The Last Duel, Air, and This. He is on a tremendous run of doing different things, working in different modes, making big movies that are not franchise movies.

And he's awesome in all of those movies. Yeah. Now, what I love about it is he's trying a lot of different shit, but it almost feels like he's established his new home base as a movie star. His default performance mode for maybe his 50s now as he goes in white fella tired exasperated irritated husky dude like what what are you what are you trying to say to me like this energy of just like that out with it that's ford obviously right stillwater is like a real performance that's a great good movie and he's just amazing in it i'm linking stillwater oppenheimer air yeah yeah as that feels like his new era.

Last duel. He's fucking hilarious in that movie. He's such a buffoon. Yeah. He's so good. Yeah. He's happy to make himself the butt of jokes. Yes.

And then, yeah, this and air, it's just, yeah. Like it's that energy. Yeah. Okay.

Robert Downey Jr. Do you like the performance? I think he's, you know, going to win an Oscar. I think he probably is. Like, I think it's just kind of that uncorking thing. They're like, yeah, buddy, we knew you had it in you.

It's weird to see both these guys we're talking about now kind of looking old. Well, look, Downey Jr., I know they're— Well, look, Downey Jr., I know they're— RDJ's wearing makeup. He lost weight. He shaved his hairline back. He looks a lot like his father in this, which I found very fascinating. And his father was obviously

this great countercultural figure. He was about as opposite from Strauss as you could get. But especially in sort of the latest period of the movie, people haven't seen Senior, which is the documentary about his father. It's really good.

But there's a really strong resemblance there. And he's even talked about in interviews of like, it was wild to look at myself yeah this is me in 15 years because everything he hasn't done anything transformative in 15 years as an actor right right that's the last movie where he looked different and that he looked quite different in that movie yes but uh but now it's like you know what what's the big move we're doing for do little uh stubble no mustache you know like everything's like, you know, what's the big move we're doing for Doolittle? Stubble, no mustache, you know, like everything's like adjusting a little bit, the default Downey look.

And this is him really changing his look up. And I think he said he looked in the mirror and he saw his dad and he was just like, oh, I have not seen myself look like this. Because to a certain degree, he has been preventing himself from aging because he's an A-list movie star. been preventing himself from aging because he's an A-list movie star. The other thing I read in interview is he was talking about, I think it's in that New York Times piece, where he was saying like the way that Nolan works is so sort of like Spartan and such a team effort and there are no egos and everything. And he said, we were like setting up a shot and Nolan was like framing the camera around me. I was sitting in a chair and he was like, I have to run quickly. Can I just hand this off to you? Or he handed him a roll of film or something he handed Downey Jr. a piece of equipment was like I'll be back in one second and he was like this would never happen on a Marvel movie right and

this isn't him showing disrespect for me but it's like we're all just in this together and he was like I haven't had to hold equipment on a set in so long and he was like this is what I grew up with was my dad grew up around cameras handing me film canisters and he was like it was such a nice moment and i read that and i went i bet nolan did that on purpose right i absolutely believe in a canny way nolan was like what am i gonna do right this is like a sensory film canister tactile experience performance better i'm so into your Nolan voice. I'm sorry. I am too. But you just feel that.

You feel him being, not just that he's uncorked, but that he's like really connected into the meat of the movie. It's nice that he got to be, you know, on a real set. Yes. I hope he does more of this kind of stuff. Wearing an actual costume,

not wearing pajamas. Florence Pugh we talked about. Josh Hartman we talked about. Josh Hartnett, we talked about, you know. Yeah, just got to acknowledge that he looks like Aaron Sorkin. He does.

He's got the hair that looks like Aaron Sorkin. Oh. Oh. Glad we caught that on mic. And surround. Fucking Jesus. You guys got to start

a musical about people who look like Aaron Sorkin. And the little glasses. I think that's a wonderful performance. Made me really want to check in with Hartnett. Apparently that was a ruse to care. Bilga was going on about that.

I love Bilga to death. Sometimes he'll be like, hmm, and I'm like, what? He did two Guy Ritchies. Yeah, he's really, I mean, I'm a big fan of Wrath of Man, which he's also in. He's not the best part of it

or anything like that. I have not seen Rooster Gear. Casey Affleck we mentioned, Malek we mentioned, Brandon we mentioned. Benny Safdie is wonderful as Edward Teller. He's playing a guy who essentially Doctor Strange I was based on. Yes. And Edward Teller had that accent. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a little Watto-y. But like, and it's really interesting to hear Safdie talk about it where he's like,, I'm listening, you know, Nolan's giving me all these tapes of this guy speaking, and he sounds like this. And I'm like, how hard am I supposed to hit this? And is there any way to do this and not make it sound goofy, no matter how accurate I go? And I think he totally nails it. Like a Hungarian accent. Yeah, like a thick Hungarian accent.

And he totally nails. He's also a grumpy Gus. Like everything about this guy feels. Exactly, this guy just had this energy. Like where it's like hi edward and he goes yes you know like it or whatever like he's just kind of an asshole he's like at one point in like a like a early meeting when they're just setting up los alamos he's like this is more important and he just like sort of interrupts oppie right and like benny saftey who has weirdly become the character actor of his generation the guy that every fucking major director wants to slot in i i was saying to marie i love are you their god it's me margaret yeah i felt him being a little unmoored in that movie

sure where that's good i mean he's got nice energy obviously but like that's a role where the whole point is like you kind of just want like a solid simple kind of uncomplicated guy and i felt like he was struggling more to play a guy who didn't have like he's he didn't have some weird thing about him he's really good at actually doing the work if you put a really complicated assignment on his plate which is fascinating for a guy who was not like intending to be an actor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jason Clarke, King of Cucks. Yeah. Dylan Arnold, not an actor I'm that familiar with.

He's the guy, he's in the Halloween movies, the Gordon Green movies, as Frank Oppenheimer. Oh, okay. But he's really, really strong face resemblance. Yes. Both to Killian and to the real Frank Oppenheimer. They do a really good job on the aging in this movie too. By the way, we're like so fucking grateful when we cut to oppenheimer university and there is no fucking de-aging you just put them in a different wig and you let an actor play a different age i think they didn't

even again no one hates wigs i think they just cut his hair different they like make his hair stand up yeah i think he was a little like a little heavier yeah and they just like you look tired and they don't they basically don't really go hard on aging makeup until the one so brief but they do they do use aging makeup in subtle ways like the they have like more eye folds but it feels like the very classical of like oh they're putting like burnt apple skin on their face it's just like very it's it's just classic movie. No, totally. Tom Conti comes in, Reigns 3. Just absolutely fucking dominates.

Mr. Lawrence himself. The only person, the only celebrity my mother has ever written a fan letter to is Tom Conti. And he replied. What did he say? I assume he said thank you and was very nice about it. She wrote him a letter about his performance in the broadway play whose life is it anyway uh which is he won the tony for in 1979 she said it's the only time i ever was like so moved by something and she was younger

like that i felt compelled to write a fan letter wow and he replied Is that the play that Mary Tyler Moore replaced him in? That actually sounds true. Yes, there was a gender reverse version of it. It's about a guy who's paralyzed from the neck down. Yeah, that's it. Oh, wow. Can I just watch that Mary Tyler Moore documentary? She got like a special Tony for the gender reverse version. Because they couldn't give her a Tony

because she didn't know Richie was the role. But he's best known, I think, for that, for Reuben Reuben, when she got an Oscar nomination for... And for Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. And just, honestly, a lot of others. He's a great character actor. He's in Friends, I believe?

He's in the hole with Bruce Wayne in Dark Knight Rises, telling him to crawl up. He is. I do love it when Nolan brings guys off the bench in that way. But, no, this is... I mean, this is the thing that should break the movie.

To have sort of like magical Einstein popping in at the appropriate moments. A thing that is really a narrative creation. He does pop in at one point, which is fun. Yeah. Like behind the taxi. Yes. The one fiction Nolan's allowing himself is that when, you know, Oppenheimer took those calculations of like, are we going to blow up the world? He took it to a different scientist.

He had a relationship with Einstein. He did. But these scenes are all created. Nolan's like, he should talk to Einstein as this figure of the past that they all revere but are also moving beyond. Yes. And Einstein was very negative about quantum theory and didn't like the idea of chaos in science. Kind of an anti-Joker. Exactly.

Exactly. And that's why he did battle with the Joker. He did. But, like, so Einstein sort of wouldn't engage with their theories at a certain point and spent the rest of his life sort of trying to negate them. But they love him still. And that's, you know, the role he plays.

James Darcy is Blackett. Yeah. One little one scene performance there. Yeah. In the Apple. And then, yeah. David Dalmachian,

Dust Malchian. both incredibly good, I think. Really good. Yeah. Yeah. I took a photo of the title card that had Alden,

Dane, and David Dasmachalian or whatever his name is. The Karen Boyd card. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, Jesus Christ,

these three guys. It is that thing. Tony Goldwyn is just always good as some Washington fuck mentioned early but Macon Blair I think is really good

yeah Macon Blair is really good and also I was like that was Macon Blair yeah I didn't know I didn't realize that totally yeah interesting

there's a Skarsgård in this movie Gustav yeah love him is he the he's Hans Bethe is he the tall,

bald guy? Yeah. Bald guy. Yeah. Jefferson Hall is Hakan Chevalier, the sort of the truest communist

of the Chevalier. What a devastating scene when they show up with the baby. He's got a really good face. He does. That guy. He's on

House of the Dragon right now. What else do I know him from? He's got a good face. He's on Vikings, apparently. right now. What else do I know him from? He's got a good face. He's on Vikings, apparently. Jack Quaid playing Bongos. Richard Feynman. Love him. Look, Jack Quaid just showed up on the best show on television, Strange New Worlds,

playing his cartoon character from fucking Lower Deck. In live action or animated? The show, the episode opens in animated, and he gets sucked through a portal into live action a hundred years ago. And he's got purple hair. I love Jack Quaid. Damon, you're out. I'm subbing in a 20 years younger guy.

Quaid, hop in. Is he 20 years younger? At 31, he's pretty young. Love him in this, though. That guy was fun. The guy he's playing. And I think Nolan probably just thinks Quaid's got a fun energy. Yes.

Yes, he does. Yeah. Josh Peck, which a lot of people were very surprised by him being cast in this movie. He's good. And he plays the guy who pushes the button. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just putting my theory out here and I have told this to David Sims.

theory out here and I have told this to David Sims. I'm betting you that Oppenheimer will not be in David Ehrlich's top 25 but the countdown where Josh Peck presses the button. If you don't put this in your top 25, I'm going to drag you on every episode of Blank Check in 2024. Every single one at drive-by.

Even ones you're on. Never have I seen a countdown so perfectly suited for Ehrlich's purposes. Anyway, yeah. Good looking countdown. Yeah, great countdown. We mentioned Modine Krumholtz just once again. Yeah, I mean.

Krumholtz is my favorite performance in this movie. It's an amazing. He enters into this movie. You've seen it twice. There's the scene on the train. Yeah. That's kind of the convening of the Jews a little bit. West side of the park, east side of the park.

He's from downtown. I think he's just making fun of him for being like, you know, Oppenheimer was a Tony boy when he was a bit. Yeah. West side of the park, east side of the park. He's from downtown. I think he's just making fun of him for being like, you know, Oppenheimer was a Tony boy, went to ethical culture, from the Upper West Side. Krummets was more of an Obie boy.

Exactly. A drama desk boy. Well, he enters into this movie and my immediate thought was like, man, the next 40 years of Krummets' career are going to be so good.

You're going to be eating them oranges. Right. And he's been on like a good, like obviously like Leopold Stral and all these things. But then you're just like, this feels like it's like really crystallizing on such a grand stage. Do you know him? I've met him. He's a very nice man. I wouldn't say.

I know him. I'm not friends with him. Okay. He's sort of odd to engage with in a way but also he's he likes you or he likes things he's done he's been very nice to me on instagram he's been very nice to me very supportive of my work is he a friend i would love to get him on the podcast i don't know if he's ever listened uh well hey if you're listening yeah we'd love to have you he weirdly came to one of my shows years ago and was really and was like, he DM'd you saying this is David Krumholz.

He came up to me back and said, it was, it was, he came to the best sketch I ever did. It was like, if there was ever a night

where Krumholz was going to see me. Now, did he ride an elf jetpack in? He did. Okay, good. And he had like

the little elf ninjas with him. And then he did George Lucas a couple months ago. So I've only met him twice. But both times I've had very nice conversations with him. Sort of a K months ago. So I've only met him twice. But both times I've had very nice conversations with him.

Sort of a crumb sandwich. A little bit of a crumb sandwich, a crumb cake. He was one of my earliest childhood crushes. Well, I think there have been so many pieces written about the fucking, what's his, why am I forgetting his character's name in Santa Claus? I don't know. It's not Bernard. Bernard.

But it wasn't even the Bernard. It was him and Adam's family values. Yeah. He was such a cutie. That's a guy where you're just like, he has been doing good work at every age. And he evolves and he changes. But like

he's always good. Who else? Oh, Alex Wolfe. Alex Wolfe? Yeah. I mean, again, these are guys who serve face. Yes.

I just need one second of their face to retain Wolfe's here. Yeah. DeHaan's here. Ali Haskavi is the one who you were doing the impression of

at the beginning of the episode who's a very good actor. New York theater actor who's been doing more film and television recently. Olivia Thirlby, you'll love to see her. quits in protest yes fuck this shit after a while yes and damon's like maybe we'll have him killed just kidding uh i always get his name wrong but josh zuckerman i think is the one who's the first pupil in the class yes uh kyle xy character

apparently he was a kyle xy character i think he's he's young dr evil and gold member that's who he will forever be to me you're right yes uh christopher denham is klaus fuchs the soviet spy yes and i think am i wrong does he play the same guy on manhattan the like manhattan is all like fictionalized yes he doesn't play the same people but he plays a similar type of guy I think On Manhattan characters like Oppenheimer are sort of like Background characters who occasionally come in But most of the main characters are sort of

Inspired by type And Manhattan is mostly about how everyone was Fucking each other It's kind of the idea of like this city of scientists Is the idea of Manhattan which is cool It's really easy to sell a TV show When WGN America was buying them But go on scientists is the idea of manhattan which is really easy to sell a tv show when wgn america was buying them but go on but no but also just to go like you we all know this thing right

what if everyone was fucking during that right right right and basic cable would just like throw money at you pay cable throw even more as long as you had nudity waivers go on i'm trying to think if there are other big scenes No, that's basically everyone Oh yeah, big scenes We could talk about this movie for 87 episodes And I want to see it again In IMAX, I want to know So, I mean, I heard some complaints

Classic Nolan complaints of, in IMAX especially Somewhat hard to hear the dialogue Because it's such a cacophony of sound and score We saw a 70mm screening together When there was an IMAX screening happening above at the same time. And when we talked to people who were in the IMAX screening, they were like, some of the dialogue I couldn't make out. And that's obviously... And there's so much dialogue at the start.

A constant Nolan hit. And a lot of that is he doesn't want to do ADR. He wants to use production audio when you're filming with IMAX cameras. It involves some trickery to remove that sound from the equation. What have you. But we did not have that complaint walking out of the 70mm screening. Going into IMAX, I was curious to see if we had it. I don't know if it's because I had already heard the dialogue one time,

but I did not find it as sort of disorienting a mix as maybe some of his past films. No, I thought it was incredible in IMAX. Yeah. Like, yeah. Well, you just, like, any time they cut to the true imac shots were just like which is quite often i was gonna say isn't it sort of most of yeah the majority of the movie shot yeah and um you just see his big ass face in like the greatest resolution imaginable but with like this real kind of like texture and warmth i mean this is they had to develop black and white IMAX film because it was a thing

that no one had ever asked for before. Right. Yep. And they have to, like, start the damn thing on time because it's so fucking long that they, like,

can't even load previews onto the reel. Well, for us, what they did was they played 20 minutes of trailers on the IMAX laser projector. And then they clearly

switched projectors. And there's the great moment where you hear suddenly, it's like, the trailer's end, Nicole Kidman, lights out, and then you clearly switch projectors and there's the great moment where you hear suddenly it's like the trailers end nicole kidman lights out and then you hear like yeah and then suddenly yeah i mean it's wild shit uh that he was filming like these dialogue scenes with a fucking imax camera like nolan you know i think it's coming out from like benevolent ends but like he's every decision he's making in his career carries weight in that kind

of way of like, if I want to shoot this in black and white, new technology has to be developed. You know? And IMAX is like, okay. How many movies started shooting in IMAX after him? Right. So, box office? Or is there anything else we want to discuss? Well, can we do a quick ranking?

Maybe not of all. Where does this rank in the Nolan oeuvre? That's a really tough question. I have it second. I've only seen the movie once. I'm going to wrestle with it. It's a fluid thing for me always, but I have it above everything but Interstellar,

which is my favorite. I had it at third under The Prestige and Dunkirk. Prestige I have third. Prestige is my number one. But I think I'm going to put Oppenheimer, now that I've seen it twice,

I'm going to put that at number one. I think it's his best movie. God bless you. I do think it's a monumental achievement for Mr. Nolan. Let me look over to Lister for Nolan,

my Letterboxd private list of Christopher Nolan films. I'm seeing here Lister for Nolan, my Letterboxd private list of Christopher Nolan films. I'm seeing here that you've been banned by Letterboxd. I've actually been promoted. I'm the CEO. Huh.

My ranking, but I think this was my ranking at the time of when we did the miniseries. Sure, the list you gave on this show or whatever. It was Prestige, Inception,

Memento, Batman Begins, Insomnia, Interstellar, Dark Knight, Tenet, Dunkirk, Dark Knight Rises, Following, Oppenheimer.

Well, Oppenheimer last? Well, no. Oppenheimer just added. Sorry. Following would have been last. But I feel like I'd rethink this whole thing now. Hey, man. It's always moving around, you know?

I feel like Oppenheimer and Interstellar would be my two and three now and i'm not quite sure where i would land both of them but i've seen interstellar several more times since we've done that episode it's a really fucking good movie sure is ben where do you put oppie what's your oppie oppie thought final oppie thought scientists were cool at one point well uh my final thought is i deeply enjoyed the movie there's so much in there it's like there's the world of adams and then there's just like you pull out from there and i feel like the jfk mention yeah the just very no like a little moment yeah the fact that he wrote a paper about black holes and i was like reading about that like i just i found myself there's so it's such an expansive movie there's so much in there that you could like write a whole you could take a whole fucking class any criticism of this movie

being myopic it's like that's a specific story he wants to tell there are many tellings of this time which is so expansive that there is no way to do create a work that is all-encompassing of everything right yeah but i also think he is so fascinated in like what does it feel like to be inside that moment you know that singular moment like your whole life sort of someone had the i i think it was a letterboxd review joke of like hold on oppenheimer needs to think about his entire life before he sets had the i i think it was a letterboxd review joke of like hold on oppenheimer needs to think about his entire life before he sets off the bomb like making the walk hard joke right but it is that it's like an entire life leading up to this one moment that defines

humanity and then the wind down from that right and like how do you handle a moment like that you you don't you know yeah yeah i'm? You don't, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to read the book, though. The book's a great read. I have the audio book. I'm currently deep in my newest doorstop, which is the new Pulitzer Prize winning biography of J. Edgar Hoover.

I'm going to read it and then finally watch the Clint Eastwood movie. I'm joking. I already watched the Clint Eastwood movie. Yeah, I was about to say, what? That's good. But, you know, i love post-war and you know that period of american history it's so interesting yeah and complicated and dark yeah i just want to also mention growing up in high school i had a poster of the atomic bomb oh and it's hell i still haven't dug it up, but I want to find a photo

of me smoking weed in front of it. Who would dare? This film opened at number... You ever think about it, though? It's like crazy. This film opened at number two at the box office, Griffin. Are you aware? I'm aware.

To a healthy $82 million. I would say an astonishing number. Both it and Barbie doubled their tracking, but Barbie's tracking always seemed like Warner Brothers was kind of like trying to downplay the hype. Oppenheimer tracking at 40, I was like, that's a pretty healthy number for a three-hour R-rated biopic. And I think everyone said, like, if that gets to 50,

you'll be seen as a slam dunk, and 80 is almost, like, incomprehensible. And much like Barbie, it is now just like eating every day like you know monday to you know like it's box office success is massive it's the biggest opening of nolan's career that's not a batman movie yeah why um it's the biggest biographical opening ever except for american sniper not the passion of the christ the hollywood reporter that is not a biographical movie. Jesus did not invent chairs, for example, which is something he, or tables.

So I had a tweet about this where I kind of dunked on the Hollywood reporter, and I was like, can we call that a biographical film? People were like, oh, Jesus actually existed as a historical figure. And I'm like, excuse me, as someone who was on Blank Check's Benedetta episode, I'm very familiar with Paul Verhoeven's work

on the historical Jesus. Right. Do they call it X'd now? Do they, hey, X'd? Okay, so number one was, Griffin, what was number one at the box office? Number one at the box office was the Barbie movie, also just titled Barbie.

Barbie, which made $162 dollars in three days yeah and is now making 25 million dollars every weekday i have friends going to screenings you know film my my colleagues my film crew friends like allison was just texting me she's like i'm at amc lincoln square everyone here is a woman in pink yes like this is like this is this rare thing where it's like this is a phenomenon yeah but but the thing that it's like, this is a phenomenon. Yeah. But the thing that is totally. And then there's one guy in a trench coat with a wide brimmed hat. He looks lost in thought. The thing that is unprecedented and unreplicatable is that like everyone bought into the collective

spirit of this thing. Yes. Yes. And the Barbie people were like, we should see Oppenheimer. Yeah. And the Oppenheimer people were like, we should see Barbie. Yeah. Go see Barbie.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Damon had this interview where he was like, the thing that excites me about this movie is, like, this used to exist. Big studios with big stars making important movies about difficult subjects, and we would go, I need to go see that.

Right. Even if that's not necessarily my genre, quote-unquote. There is, like, some sense of this is important, I should contend with this, right? There is some sense of this is important, I should contend with this. And you're like, Oppenheimer has now basically outgrossed most Best Picture winners in one weekend of the last 15 years. Totally. I mean, it's probably going to win Best Picture. I'll say it right now. People who don't usually see this type of movie felt like, well, no, I think this is culturally important to go see this.

I need to contend with this thing. And they felt the same way about Barbie, and that's really fucking exciting. It's great. I brought my mom and dad to see Barbie. Everyone wore pink. It was really cute. My wife went to see it today.

Did she wear pink? Don't know that she wears a lot of pink in her life. I don't think I've ever seen your wife wear pink. Neither have I. And of course, I know your wife better than you do. Of course you do. We went to high school together. Yes, that's true. Oppenheimer, opening to $82 million. Number three at the box office,

Sound of Freedom. Moving on. Let's not talk about that. Number four at the box office, Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning Part 1. Making $120 million over the last two weeks undeniably disappointing look the sound of freedom thing they could not have seen coming and i do think that has the entity put it there i think that has weirdly become direct competition to mission impossible more than any other movie yeah i think it is the one being hit the hardest by it we agree they fucked up putting this movie a week before oppenheimer yes like literally you have actually built a brand of tom cruise equals large format yes why are you gonna put this movie behind the one movie that's

definitely gonna be on imax it's the one guy he can't beat the one guy he can't beat is nolan oh nolan's middle initial is i yes for imax yes yes and then right and then he's still the thing about it is it's like the movie's still doing fine it's doing well internationally yeah and the eighth movie is being made so i don't have a lot of sweat over mission impossible underperforming yeah but i you know still it's a good movie can i can i cruise would ever work with nolan he should he should he fucking should be he to work with no he should like that's the next move should be the two of them being like let's come up with the thing um i i want to put this on mike okay because our mission possible episode came out a week ago but we recorded several weeks ago and and the world has changed it sure has since that um the the

scuttlebutt when they announced that they were going to do a two-part Mission Impossible sequel, right, was like, Tom Cruise, knock it on the door, step up 60. They maybe want to get as much in the can as they can as quickly as possible. Yes. And, of course, what they thought would be a two-year production has basically become a five-year production. Endless production, yes. Right. But also what happens in between that time, a thing I did not say on Mike is that Top Gun Becomes so big that suddenly Tom Cruise is hotter than ever

And I wonder if he goes fuck it I'm not leaving I'm gonna keep making these forever Because recently in the press he was saying I'm not ending no one I never said the next one was the last one On our episode you wonder is this A smokescreen To create some actual narrative tension

If the last one's the last one make it hit harder or whatever right but maybe not maybe you're right maybe he's like I'm Tom Cruise

I'm invincible what I have thought in the week since we recorded that episode is he went into it thinking that I guess it's time to get out all the

getting's good and then went like maybe I don't need to leave maybe I'm better than I've ever been and I do wonder if the slightly softer

box office performance of this film going into the next one, which is not finished, which is only half shot and currently on hiatus because of the strike, I do wonder if they go back

to it and go, maybe it's time to, like, put a bow on this. For a franchise that had been growing for several installments in a row. I'll say this, Griffin.

It's just, I just want to throw it out on Mike. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm right. We'll see what happens. Well, I don't know. Can we talk about the strike quickly? Yes. I do think it's important to talk out on Mike. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm right. We'll see what happens. I don't know. Can we talk about this very quickly? Yes. I do think it's

important to talk about on Mike. We've been banking episodes up like crazy. Even Mission Impossible. Your friends off to Bonnie Scotland. Going to Edinburgh to do the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with the Baron and the Junk Dealer and George Lucas Talk Show. A play that Connor Ratliff has written in the world of the George

Lucas Talk Show, our comedy show we do together, and also doing a couple of performances of the actual thing. So we've been banking up episodes like crazy. We are already basically half done on the miniseries that comes out after Park, which we haven't even announced yet. Who knows?

The Park episodes were done a while ago, and even, yeah, I was going to say Mission Impossible, we did like three weeks ago at this point. Yeah. So none of the other episodes you will hear for a while now will really address the strike as it's going on. And there's just been understandably a lot of questioning about like does that affect the podcast at all? And that is because it has been a very long time since SAG went on strike. The last time was 1980.

Maybe. And the 60 was the big strike. Did they have a brief one in 80? There's the one where Powers Booth, the thing that's at the beginning of I'll Do Anything, the James Earl Brooks movie. I think it's 1980. So it's been about 43 years.

To say the industry has changed a lot in the last 43 years is an understatement. Right. They had less podcasts back then. A couple fewer. They did have the Flophouse, though. They did. No, the Flophouse and FilmSpotting were the two yeah they did no the flop house the flop house and

film spotting were the two right but they were the cinecast at that point um but uh even the writer's strike uh the last time uh wga went on strike was uh 2007 to 2008 and things have changed so radically in that time that i think a lot of the hand-wringing that people are seeing out in the public sphere about what is okay to do or what is not is unclear because everything has changed so radically since the last time any of these major unions went on strike. Yeah, some of it is happening on the fly, sort of figuring out this stuff. By the way, that's a lot of why we are striking is because a lot of these lines have gotten blurred in terms of what is work and what isn't, what do we deserve to be paid for and what do we not, and what is promotion, what isn't, you know? We've gotten to this weird space where companies basically expect, the biggest media companies in

the world expect all of the people who work on their projects to do free advertising for the project in their own platforms that they've spent decades creating to ostensibly give value to the projects. It's all fucked. Everything's fucked and it's bad. All this to say people are understandably confused, concerned, you know, whatever about my status as someone who is a member of SAG-AFTRA and hosts a podcast that is about movies.

These things are being defined and redefined over and over again. There was an FAQ that came out yesterday. We stay up with these things and read them. But this is primarily a comedy show of film criticism. What we do here is not, even if we are on an episode like today, doing an Oppenheimer episode, promoting movies, you know? Criticism is not promotion.

Exactly. And if those lines are blurred, that is perhaps... Obviously, I'm not in tech. Right. But there does need to be a distinction between the two things. And I do think... Now, we were paid by Universal to do this episode. Wildly. We're going to retire with the money we made

on this episode. We hated it. Being very clear that that's a joke. It's a joke. And that's important to remember. It's a joke. And we didn't write it down. We didn't write it. Pencils firmly down on the table. I don't know if you guys know this, but we don't really write anything we say on this show. It's a little off the cuff.

This show is wildly unscripted. It is independent. We rarely work in conjunction with any larger entities. We rarely even book guests through publicists or specifically to promote specific things. I can think of very few examples. What is at stake? What will change because of the strike happening? An episode you wouldn't hear is having Benji and Dan on to talk about Detective Pikachu,

a movie they wrote the week the movie is coming out. That is basically the only type of episode that we wouldn't do right now. And that is the only time in the history of eight years of doing this show we have done anything like that. You can imagine something like that. Right. So like a a plug section a thing we often forget to even do will not be happening right uh no i mean again we recorded a lot of stuff before the strike maybe there are plugs there but i don't think there's really any promotion happening it's like current projects even it's just not really what this show is i mean we had zaz love on that one episode yeah but he was good

so funny he's funny the bits the bits um but yes we unscripted there pencils down there are a couple of new release movies that are currently on our spreadsheet for the rest of the year that are directors we've covered in the past who have films that hopefully knock on wood will not get bumped to 2024 and will come out before this year. Wouldn't happen for a couple of months. I would love to believe these strikes are resolved in a way that is fucking beneficial. I'm speaking to the studios. To the workers who make the product that they are no longer treated like fucking garbage.

Your failure. Yes. Like, admit that you have played this wrong from the beginning. Look, there are a couple CEOs who need to get down on their knees and take a big L. Gotta take an L. That's the moment. Some Ls need to be taken, and they do not need to be taken from the artists who make these projects. Executives love taking Ls.

It's one of their favorite things to do. Yeah, so just go to the fucking public square, stand up tall, adjust your tie, and take the biggest fucking L you've ever taken in your life. I'd love to see that. Yes. I'm excited to see that. But, yes, for the time being, we've read over everything. There is nothing about what SAG is defining in terms of what they are encouraging their members to not do during the strike that conflicts with this show, and if there's stuff in there, in the language that makes you feel like, well, that sounds like they're describing Blank Check,

a lot of that is because the language of all this stuff is weird and messy, and there is so much stuff, like podcasts that are explicitly promoting a TV show that an actor is on, and all that sort of stuff. But, you don't have to... We're fiercely independent, baby! Not even part of a studio! No. No.

We're part of Blank Check Productions. Yes. Yeah. Which is a registered S-Corp. Which is what? But our name's a little too long, so it doesn't fit on the documents, and it says Blank Check Productio.

Yeah, it sure does. The N and the S are cut off. Productio. Productio. Number five at the box office, it's the fifth film in a long-running franchise. Insidious the 15th. No, that's six. The Lost Key, the Red Key. What's it called? The Red Door? That's six. It's the fifth film in a long-running franchise Insidious the 50 The Lost Key, The Red Key

That's six, that's six, it's The Red Door That's six though Indiana Jones and the Dallas Which, you know, honestly Has made 350-ish million dollars worldwide It's not good But it's not nothing

Insidious The Red Door Has made 160 worldwide It seems the Red Door Is fucking clowning On everyone else Yeah Elemental's holding really well It's actually gonna Sort of end up being

An okay hit for Pixar Yeah I mean If it had done that number To begin with It still would have ended up In the bottom three Pixar movies But it opens so low

It's not an embarrassment Right It will end up Ahead of Lightyear and ahead of Good Diner. What else are people going to take their kids to right now? Nothing. That's why Elemental is holding.

I mean, I know there was a lot of hand-wringing over if Barbie was appropriate for children. Which I think is good. Rise of the Beasts has made $420 million worldwide. It's also kind of just hanging in there because little boys need something to see.

And No Hard Feelings has quietly crept to $50 million domestic. A movie that has really grown on me. Murray, we saw that together. I don't know how you feel. I'm a wreck. The more I think about it, the more I like it. Yeah, it's a good movie. And I'm sitting here, The Flash has made $1 billion.

Take the billion. The DCEU continues. Downgrade that to a million. No, Ninja Turtles comes out in August, and that will have its room until the Mighty Movie enters and just licks up the box office. Don't forget. Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp.

Who's chomping? The Meg. She's coming out of the trench. I was just talking with kids' movies. Oh, that's true. Right. But it's a thing that's been talked about. The kids movies are too spaced out and they're generally overperforming outside of Ruby Gilman who got done dirty. We're going to see lots of

kids movies two years from now. It's always a reaction to two years ago. Of course. Sing 2 was still at the theater when I went. Hey, man. They do that sort of thing. It's weird. No, it wasn't. Are you joking? No, I'm pretty sure. They will, like, do, like... No, it wasn't. Are you joking? No, I'm pretty sure. They will do this thing for, like, weekend matinees

where they, like, bring back a classic, like Sing 2. I'm not even kidding. Like, Regal and AMC will be, like, Sunday matinees of a classic from the vault. It was so weird. Yeah. Yeah. It's playing at the Look Dine-In Cinemas on 57th Street.

I've seen Sing 2 showing up a lot lately. It must have cheap licensing. Wow. Yeah. That's Wow. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. A movie I saw and could not wrap my head around. Wow.

Unlike Ruby Gilman, which made perfect sense. I'll check it out. I'm excited to watch Ruby Gilman. In like five years from now. Yeah. I think your daughter would love Ruby Gilman. In a couple years. Right now, my daughter loves one movie.

Yeah. Moana. Ponyo. I watch it every day. And you no joke and that is why i'm specifically saying i think your daughter might like ruby gilman because water but we're like fish people it's got a similar vibe we're gonna have to build up to introducing we're still at the stage where it's like a second movie will be an interesting concept to her she's kind of like i got pony want Ponyo. Didn't she go through a huge Moana phase? She's watched a lot

of Moana songs. She's watching clips. But Moana the movie is a little intense. You know, it's got Te Fiti. Te Fiti's kind of scary. Yeah. It's got more talking.

Ponyo is just so perfect for a toddler. Sure. Because it's just like, it's just about a little toddler. Yeah. Like, making a mess

and causing chaos. Like, it's very, very simple. And it's about five-year-olds. Well, Ruby Gilman's about a nice kid who happens to be a teenage track. I have to go home.

Rubber hose animation. Their limbs are going like this. It's fun. It's goofy. We've been recording for three hours. Right, Benny? It's about how long

the movie Oppenheimer is. Yeah, we finally crested Oppenheimer length. And so we do, yes, just, you know, to underline, of course, have massive solidarity with the people on strike

who deserve everything they're asking for and more. Yeah, truly. The studios are craven pigs who should bow to their every demand and apologize for ever putting them through anything else. Yeah, it sucks.

Look, there are... I'm not saying it's gonna happen. It's just what should happen. Yeah. I'll say what should happen. Yeah. I'll say this on mic. There is a joke I have with fellow podcasters who started out in film and television. Yes, you've mentioned this joke.

Yeah. Thank God we got into the very stable industry of podcasting to support our hobby of working in film and television, but that is increasingly what it feels like. Very grateful to all of you for listening to the show and supporting it because it is wild how unsustainable it has become to pursue

any career in film and television. Yeah. And then these companies, there's never been more of a demand for the things. Yeah. Yeah, and also, yeah, come on, Hollywood. I wrote about this do not watch this happen no this phenomenon no that's making people excited to be in movie theaters again and

go like should we just like punt everything off the schedule people voting with their dollars and like treating specific movies as special rather than just sludge coming down a pipeline right make things feel special again in a way that actually compensates the people who work on them. Yeah. Anyway. Thank you all for listening. We'll see you next week

with I'm a Cyborg, but that's okay. Karen Shee. The great Karen Shee. A lovely episode. First time guest. That's a very goofy episode. She is so great.

For a deeply weird film. But yeah, back into Park Chan-wook for I'm a Cyborg, but that's okay. The namesake of our miniseries. Thank you all for listening. Thank you to Marie Barbi

and film director Barbie for being here. That was film director Barbie. That wasn't me. Wow. You're welcome. Was that you or film director Barbie? That was me.

Okay. Slightly similar voices. What's going on here? Thank you to JJ Birch for enjoying his vacation this week. Seemed like he went to Pitchfork Fest. Yeah. He texted me. Him and Nick were hanging out. They're being cuties.

He texted me some guy at Pitchfork Fest saying about Lightning McQueen. He was really excited. That was the first indie rock song to invoke Lightning McQueen by name. Ka-chow. Thank you to AJ McKee and Alex Barron for our editing, Lay Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song, Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork.

We haven't gotten it yet, but we assume David will be wearing the Oppenheimer hat. It just feels like that's probably where this goes. Put the hat on me. Hey, put Bing Ramsey's hat on me for Mission Impossible. Keep putting hats on that head. They're kind of diametrically opposed and at Ving,

it's always at an angle and Oppenheimer's straight. Yes. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit

including our Patreon Blank Check Special Features where we're currently going through the Ocean's movies but also every 10 days we unlock an episode from three years ago, and there are a couple that have linked up very directly

to the things we're talking about here. So the Mission Impossible series is about to start being unlocked, and the Way of the Gun episode, the one sort of missing Macquarie episode. We don't sound depressed on that episode. No siree, Bob. I have a lot of optimism for the future. Definitely not recorded in summer 2020.

Yes. Yep. Absolutely. So yeah, tune in next week. We'll go back to the park. And as always, Christopher Nolan thinks that Oppenheimer is a hero and the bomb was good.

That is how to read this movie. Everyone should watch Threads. We didn't even talk about Threads.