Blank Check with Griffin & David - Picnic at Hanging Rock with Jane Schoenbrun

Episode Date: March 15, 2026

On St. Valentine's Day in 1900, a group of podcasters set out to record an episode about Peter Weir's Picnic At Hanging Rock. Some were never to return...because they got addicted to the calming sounds of pan flute! Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun joins us to chat about this 1975 classic of Australian cinema, and we're getting into the eerie qualities that make this film such an enduring mystery. From Rachel Roberts' wig drama to frame rate manipulation...from the Aboriginal concept of "dream time" to the casting of actual private school girls...there's much to unpack. But don't worry, we also spend a lot of time discussing The Grabber from The Black Phone 2. Check out Jane's Dream Film Syllabus Watch the Virgin Suicides Zoom Reunion Read Australian Gothic: Peter Weir’s ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ at 50 by Tim Pelan Check out Jane's Sully Tumblr Pre-Order Jane's Book Public Access Afterworld Pan flute accompaniment composed and performed by Alex Mitchell Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On St. Valentine's Day in 1900, a party of schoolgirls set out to podcast at Hanging Rock. Some were never to return. That's the tagline. That's the tagline. Apart from podcasts. This original poster, I think, is quite beautiful. It's so good. But it is funny how much that tagline frames it.

How do you not want to see that movie? As so much more of a horror film? Well, of course. Yes. But I love the pink border. It's really good. I just think it's so. It actually sells the aesthetics of the movie pretty well.

Yeah. It visually represents. I did Google or I think I clicked through on Wikipedia. St. Valentine's Day. I was like, what is St. Valentine's Day? Is it different? No, it's just Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day.

Honors the Roman Saint-Balentine guys. You guys, you know, we got to give it up for her. Shut out. Excuse me, I celebrate an agnostic Valentine's Day. The only God I respect on Valentine's Day is the only God I respect on Valentine's Day is the the Lord of Hallmark. Okay. Well, do you know what St. Valentine is the patron saint of?

Fucking. No. What? Logistics? Excuse me? Epilepsy and beekeeping. May I ask how the fuck this guy got the romance holiday? I don't know.

This guy sounds like a bore. He died in the year 273. I don't think you really knew this was all going to happen. Offense to our epileptic listeners. No, I just don't know why that. Isn't there like a more romantic saint? Isn't there like a Saint Pepe Lepeu or something? A character who has never done anything wrong.

Pepe Lepew, can I defend him? 2026? Sure, yeah. No, he's back. He's back. He's back. Because Pepey back because woke died so Pepey returned. He's got a podcast on the gas network.

He's headlining skank fest. Here's my thing about Pepepe. Also, Pepe The Frog is back. I never liked Pepe Lepeu when I was a kid because I always found those cartoons boring. Yeah, that's right. It was the same. They were the same.

There's another one of these. Yeah. And it's like, okay, he's going to try and kiss the, you know, street lamp or whatever it is that he's obsessed with this time, right? Well, no. No, no. Excuse me. He's trying to kiss a cat. It's always the same cat.

Who he thinks is a skunk. Right. And then she's trying to get away with him. It is. It's a street lamp. And then he's too dumb to recognize that he's kissing a street lamp. Now that we're breaking it down, it's kind of very funny. Yeah.

No, that's good. It's actually really good. And I remember. Yeah. You remember. The paint on the tail. The paint was the good bit. Yeah.

I do think there was perhaps a conceptual flaw in the format where, like, Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote. They had something to do. You could do some variations on a theme. The exact word I was going to use. Even if the structure was the same every time, the variation of the traps and the devices was huge. Pepe Lapeu, it's always the same cat. Yeah. She's got like three moves.

And the more they bring them back, the more. they bring them back, the more you just feel terrible for her. Totally. This hell she's living in. Sure. Well, then fuck it. Pepe is canceled. Okay, we're going to cancel Pepe.

The Ice King is a post Pepe Lepeu cartoon character. You're saying adventure time? Adventure time. A great character. I like this take. Because he's like insult Pepe. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's the same thing. He's just kidnapping princesses. Yeah. But he's got the sort of, I know we learn his backstory later, but current Ice King has the kind of the deep insecurity, right? He's always shaking.

Yeah. Right. I loved Adventure Time. I admit, I have not thought about it in quite a long time. That might be an interesting one to throw at your daughter. She has tried it and she digs it but it obviously disturbs her because Adventure Time's like, you know... At a certain point it becomes

for adults too. Right, exactly. And my wife actually forbade me from showing it to her. Really? Because she was like, this is too disturbing right now. And my daughter was pretty interested in it But I think we'll wait a year or two She's also deep into watching The Wire right now

Right? You got to finish that off Trolls World Tour is the one What does she think about season two? Of the Wire? Yeah She's like Why do I have to care about the Subbacca? And then later she's like, you know what?

Season 2 might be the best one. The journey everyone goes on with the wire. Did you go through, I guess, World Tour is two. Did you do the first trolls? She watched the first trolls once. She loves trolls world, something I really struggled to say.

Trolls World War? Trolls World Tour because she loves the hard rock trolls. She loves the villainous, you know, heavy metal trolls. Rachel Bloom? Rachel Bloom and Ozzy Osbourne. RIP. The minions are from a different... They're not in that one.

They are. They're not in that one. So what trolls... Trolls is about a bunch of trolls. You know, who sing. And then Trolls World Tour reveals that there are genres of trolls based on the kind of music that they sing. And the trolls we know are the pop trolls. Right.

But there's also... So classical trolls, country trolls, heavy metal trolls, techno trolls. Was this post or pre-Barby? It's pre-Barby. Yes. And the heavy metal trolls are trying to take over and turn all music into heavy metal. Oh, that's fun. Which is a very...

Oh, wait. What about... I feel like this is also like Spider-Verse. It's got a little of that. It's post-spiderverse, but just post... Yeah. The big legacy of Trolls World Tour already semi-forgotten was it was the Caner in the coal mine. It was the first straight to

streaming. That's right. I remember that. It was supposed to come out end of March and it was the first movie like 10 days into lockdown that studios announced this will be a $30 rental on Apple tomorrow. They probably made a ton of money. I think they made a ton of money.

And now my daughter watches and on Peacock about twice a day. Wow. It sounds like you're living through a really fun time. It's a little annoying. For some people, the pandemic never ended. Yes, you're stuck in pandemic hell. It's okay. It's okay. I don't mind trolls world tour, although I do mind saying it.

Yeah, it's terrible. Welcome to Blank Check with girlfriend and David. I'm sorry, who the fuck are you? What is this? I'm one of those. You don't say that? Well, you say it then. Can you say please? Yes, please. This is Blank Check, a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy

passion products they want, and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby one time we covered the first trolls movie on Patreon. This is a mini series on the films of Peter Weir at David's insistence. It is called Podnik at hanging cast. That's right. Because David thought Podnick was a really funny word. I don't think that was funny. I thought Podnick. Podster and cast mander the pod side of the cast.

Too much. Bullshit. That's a supreme slice of pizza. That's all the toppings. Dead podcast society is simple. That's very melancholy. That makes you want to sit by the fire. It's powerful. For stand on a desk.

Yes. A noble tier. Was that a big movie for you? You've mentioned it twice already. No, no, not at all, actually. Yeah, I've seen it once, and I've seen it years ago. I just like, Peter Weir is such an interesting, he's a weird, weird one. He's a weird one.

And I have to admit. Kind of works in every genre. Kind of couldn't put him down. This is me being, I guess, reverse. racist. I can't wait to hear this. So thrilled for one of his I cannot wait to hear this.

I always get his filmography confused with Nicholas Rokes filmography. Well, that's interesting. And I don't think that's reverse racist. It is kind of what is the commonality

between those two guys? They're just, they feel like guys who wear carvats but are freaks. There's something like Aboriginal going on. Sure, sure. Or like,

I think it's walkabout. is maybe the key. You're thinking of walkabout. That makes a lot of sense. And I'm thinking about like the, like there's this thing, especially in the,

because then I looked up the Peter Weir filmography and I was like, oh, I can't talk about, what's the one with Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe? No, not performance. That movie called. Eureka?

No, no, not Eureka. No, it's not called conversation. It's called. These are all movies, though. They are. I'm going to find it. That movie rocks. Yes.

but that's one of the more quietly insane movies ever made. I think they... Insignificance is the film. Wonderful name, too. And it was... Easy to remember. Of course, Teresa Russell, I think is... Is Marilyn Monroe.

Correct. Gary Busey, as I think Joe DiMaggio? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Where have you gone, Gary Buse? Wait, who played DiMaggio in blonde? In blonde, wasn't it? Also, Gary Busee.

He brought him back. Wasn't it Adrian Brody? No. Is it? Oh, boy. I remember thinking they got DiMaggio wrong. In blonde, in blonde, Gary B.C. was Albert Einstein. In blonde, Gary Bucie did come back.

Is Gary Bucie alive or did he recently leave us? He's alive. He's alive. But let's just say, this episode's a month away. Yeah, right, right. As is Peter Weir. Peter Weir is alive, retired, and I truly think, like, gardening and chilling out. Yeah.

Yeah, he seems to be taking it easy. Yeah. What was I going to say? So I think the, because there's this thing, especially in like the Australian Peter Weir movies, at least the ones that I've seen, where there's like, there's like something grotesque or there's some kind of like, like the guy from the, the, what's the plumber one? The plumber. The plumber. I feel like I relate that to the like, there's a lot of that kind of guy in the Nicholas Rogue. Mikos Rogue is like, I think, a classic dang-ass freak through and through, whereas Peter Weir for a guy who became...

He left it behind. He left it behind. That's what's interesting. I do think there's a baseline darkness to his movies. I think so. I think part of what was good was he was able to jump over to Hollywood and work with big stars, but what they appreciated was that he brought a surprising amount of edge and depth and dark. And in this way, there's a little bit of like Milosh. Yes.

Yes. Another guy like that. Yeah. He does have a kind of bifurcated the Australian half and the Hollywood half of his career. This is absolutely his guarantor in the terms that we usually apply on this podcast. This film. This film. His second feature film, which is basically canonically accepted in Australian culture as the great Australian movie.

I think it was named the number one Australian movie in some survey. Yeah. More than a Mad Max or a Heavenly Creatures. I guess the question is, right, now we're, now we're, now we're, get into the question of what's the competition? I think it's a little bit because this is seen as the supreme artistic achievement. Yeah. And Ben and I were watching some of the special features, producer Ben and I, on the second site box set.

And weir was talking about that in the sort of reconstructed Australian New Wave in cinema, they had like comedy breakthroughs. Mad Max, of course, is semi-inspired by the Cars that ate Paris and comes after Weir, but kind of concurrent in this time. But they were like succeeding in genre. They were succeeding in character-based comedy. And there was this feeling in the industry of can we identify our Ingmar Bergman? Can we have our like elevated O-Tor who we can point to the other countries and go, we got a guy?

And this movie was sort of received as I think we finally had. We found that we found our guy. Yeah. And then, you know, Noyce and other people come out kind of like simultaneous with him. But I think this is culturally. seen as such an important breakthrough of kind of serious legitimacy.

I mean, who are, I mean, George Miller, obviously, we mentioned him. Who are the other big guys? Bazz. Bazz. Is Alex Pryas Australia? He is? Yeah. He comes later. He's a little later. Yeah. Let's see. Who's identified

as part of the Australian New Wave? I feel like Wake and Fright has been maybe reclaimed as a significant one. But he's interesting, because that's Ted Kochev, he jumps over to America very quickly and then does like first blood. He does like trash your stuff. Sure. Dallas 40.

Weekend Friday is really cool though. That's like, but like that's, there are those Australian movies that would pass over that were basically like, you know, Australia is basically just like a burning wasteland filled with like people with sticks who will hate you. You know, people were like, I guess it is, right? You know, like, and then Paul Hogan comes over and he's like, now, we're just a bunch of Right. Love to have a big beer. You know, like there was that.

Gillian Armstrong. Yes, is part of that same wave. But I think a lot of... The leftover season three. Yes. I do think Peter Weir kind of stands out as the guy who made the translation over to the studio system the best, as I was saying. Right. Philip Noyce becomes first and foremost kind of like hired hand, elevated, adult thriller guy.

Thriller guy. Right. Damon Lindelof has cited This film And Hanging Rock, that's right, I read that Yeah, season two of the leftovers Yes, yeah. And that's the other thing about this movie

Is like the cultural tale of its influence On other major works is humongous. Sure. This feels like such a turning point movie Of helping to define. It's sort of fascinating. It was, I watched this movie for the first time Hi, I'm Jane, by the way.

Yeah, I was about to say, Griff, who's our guest? Our guest today is Jane Schoenberg. Returning to the show for the second time, director of I Saw the TV Glow. And excuse me. We're all going to the World's Fair. The title of your next film is, it's teenage sex and death at Camp Measma.

I was going to get like 60% of that right, but I didn't want to make it. Somebody said teenage death camp. This is why I didn't want to take the shot. That sounds touchy. That sounds like we could be going in the wrong direction. Yes. I definitely would have just said like,

camp measma i would have not been sure cammiasma for short there was a moment early in in like production or prep when some emails were being sent and they were just being sent with the short hand teenage sex and i said you know what go with camp measma yeah have you figured out what the acronym is is there a catchy kind of yeah yeah no it's great it's even better than is you have some good yeah yeah But then your TV glow, you could just call TV glow? Yeah. Or you could call it.

It's miasma. We, you know, we've been saying miasma. You do love a long title. I have been accused of this and, you know. You have things to say and you're going to start saying them at the title. You should call your next movie. Where does it come from? I think it comes from like, Godspeed, you black emperor albums, you know?

Yeah. Lift your skinny fingers to heaven. Yeah. Or whatever that song was called. Or album. Remember Death from Above, 1979? Sure. Remember them.

They were great. Yeah. But Jane, thank you for coming here. Thank you for doing this episode. I'm stoked. We were trying to find the right person for this one because it feels like such a big one. And I forget what it was I stumbled upon first, but you citing this as kind of like an important synthesizing of kind of dream language in cinema. In a modern way.

What I was going to say is I feel like I had this period in my 20s where like I took my like kind of like. kind of like random film video like video store teenage year film nerddom and i was like okay i got to like if if i'm going to go toe to toe with like the boys at metro graph i got a you know i got i got i got to watch them all i got to level up i got a they shoot pictures don't they top 1,000 uh and just like work my way down and um and this was very early in that for me like i watched this one like pretty early on in learning film history and the canon. And this was like an early one where I was like, whoa, there are films like this from the 70s?

What's interesting about it? Because I also like first watched it probably in college or whatever. It's like it's so hooky. Yeah. Like premise that you do like there's no barrier to entry with this movie because you're like, oh fuck, what this is a mystery. And then you watch it and you're left for the completely different set of feelings than what you might have imagined of like it's definitely not about like, you know, trying to figure out where the girls went in a meaningful way.

Like, it's not a practical film in any sense. We'll dig into this further, but the great anecdote that Peter Weir tells about showing the film to an American distributor for the first time after it had, like, broken out in Australia. Right. And it was a buzzy title. And the movie ends and the guy throws a cup of coffee at the screen and goes, there's no fucking answer. Yeah. Yeah. But that's the whole reason he wanted to make the movie.

The dream film syllabus that you wrote. Yeah. Yes. So what was this for? Was this for TV, Gloor? This was before, I mean, maybe even before, yeah, this was definitely before TV glow. A friend who had a site, I think, called a syllabus.

The Syllabus Project. Yeah, that's right. I was asked to write a syllabus of my choosing. And I was like, okay, I'm going to write a short syllabus of movies that I think I called it, like the oneric, you know, like film language. Yes. And, yeah, I would update it if I was writing it now. But I mean, I had seen this when I was scanning for potential guess. I hadn't looked at it in some months.

I'm glad you did. And looking at this list again now, these were the things I was thinking about, many of the titles I was thinking about while watching this, trying to understand or kind of place where this movie comes from. No, because no, this is the point you were making, which I think is correct, which is like there was a kind of dream logic that existed primarily in the silent cinema when it was harder to tell more conventional narratives because you didn't have dialogue and things tend to be more visually expressionistic and dreamlike. And then there was a sort of formalizing and a normalizing

of stories that it does feel like picnic at hanging rock started to break again and to like, because you put in here like a trip to the moon, cabinet Dr. Calgary and Shan Andaloo, meshes of the afternoon. Like there is something very indebted to that era. For sure. And I think like the Jean Vigo movies, which have sound obviously. The best movies ever made. But that's like, people watch those now and they're like, when the fuck was this made? Why this feels so modern? And things start to get more narrow right after that.

That's the golden age of like cocktoe and all those guys too. Yes. But I agree that looking at this movie now, like I was thinking a lot about Antonioni, right? Like this is like Laventura. It's Laventura but more people vanish. It's like Laventura meets the Wicker man. Which, like, fuck it. Yeah, totally.

No, totally. Plus Australian accents, which just like, Laventura will always have black and white and Italian in its back pocket where you're like, this is classy. Whereas Australians, you're always like, this is earthier because like the way people talk in Australia is just feels different. I think that's part of the fascinating juxtaposition of this movie where you're like, oh, it's like dainty upper class Australian period film. Yeah. at a time where everything else coming out of the Australian New Wave was like earthy

first and foremost, like dirty, ragged. There's an oddness to like from a distance is this a merchant ivory movie. And you're like, no, there's that like Australian chaos to it. Yeah. And like there's

obviously the line from this to all of Sophia Coppola's work is so direct and so short. Straight to just like virgin suicide. being her first movie feels so not iterative of this but influenced by this

and she has cited it as being like a big turning point movie for her but I also think Malick is like on the same spectrum as this

and obviously is just a couple years away I thought of Memoria watching this movie yeah that's maybe the other best movie ever made am I crazy?

I love Memoria that movie is the best movie ever made certainly of the decade I should have put it on my sight and sound list. Like, what was I doing? I've shared my fuck up with that movie, right? What?

I went to... I didn't unmute? No. Even worse. I went to see it with an ex-girlfriend at the Alamo draft house. That is the worst movie to see as a dying and experience. God bless, yeah. God forbid and emotionally charged, are we getting back together?

Crunching my... Moxerella sticks. Yeah, it was like a reconnection point that ended with me, uh, bad night. That movie made me want to just run into it. to the street. I was so happy at the ending. I was, yeah. Instead, I was just, like, very self-conscious about when I took bites of my chicken tenders. But this is a weird, like, this, like, this, like, feels like sci-fi, right? Like, picnic and hanging rock. Absolutely. At moments. It is really flirting with that. It was one of the Corn Brothers movies where you said this, David, and I've thought about it a lot,

where it's like... Great point by me. Well, wait until you hear what it is. The point was, I'm big and smart. Um, no, the point was you said something like, this movie just feels like it has the answers. What movie was I referring to? I'm trying to remember. It might have been Lubowski. Sure. But these movies that somehow feel like, is there more going on?

Is it like retaining secrets that's not sharing with me? And beyond the fact that this movie is like pointedly unsolved. Right. I think there's something to watching this where you're like, is this religious? Is this supernatural? Is it existential? Is it like general? There's something of like the, like, the.

60s and the 70, you know, there's something of like that generational moment that it's coming at the end of. But there's something really magical to a movie like this where you're like, you watch it and you get the feeling of confidence that it knows what it's about, but it's just not telling you.

Versus sometimes I think when people try to affect the style of a movie like this from the outside in, and you're like, you're just being vague. There's the Lynch quote where he says, um, I wanted it to feel like, the answer was like in the next room over. Yeah.

Yeah. Perfect way of saying it. Yeah. Isn't it crazy, though, to watch the Jean Vigo movies all like one and a half of them? Yeah. And just be like, this was the best it ever got. Like, and I'm not in a pessimistic way, just in a kind of like, oh, yeah, this is, right. It was all there pretty early and we've never beaten it.

That's how I feel about them. I dropped out of film school very quickly, but my favorite teacher in my very short period of time was a guy named Gary Meyers at CalArts, who, Before screening as La Talant said, if, what was his phrasing? It was something, I'll paraphrase this, but it was something to the effect of if 1% of movies were 1% as good as La Talant every year we would be living in a perpetual golden age of cinema.

Jesus Christ. I think it's like, like who is, like, and I do feel that relationship between love and in this film where like like, like, it's like, it's how I feel about the Blair Witch project also,

which is like, you didn't, you weren't like, let's make a found footage movie. You were, you were like, let's make a movie and here's like, like,

like you invented the language. And so. Yeah, without even totally meaning to. How I feel about like Elliot Smith's songs versus like, like a litany of like other singer songwriters who are sort of like occupying a genre.

You know, there's like something, um, like it, it was inside. him and then everyone else copied it or something and and and yeah laventura to picnic at hanging rock because i feel like i don't watch this movie and and maybe it's just that i know we're not going to get the mystery solved but laventura is like the essence of that like what if the third

act didn't come right yes right right what if it's like and that's that and uh i leave you with your thoughts like not with an answer or a explanation whereas this almost feels like it's like playing in that genre like that genre existed for this so that this could swim and run and make it a little sci-fi. Well, and also that like... A little sci-fi. It feels like a simulation sometimes. A little bit. Yeah. Something to the fact that it is so seismic, stylistically, and in terms of what it, like,

contributes to the modern film language. And yet, unlike what you're talking about, someone like Malik or Antonioni or Sophia Coppola or Elliot Smith or whoever, where you're like, this is the only way they would know how to make something. They're not looking to break the form. This is just the purest. expression of the way they view the world and their emotional landscape and all of that, you get into the making of this movie and Peter Weir just breaks it down logically. This is not a style that's really shared by any of his other films. He gets there incrementally in terms of problem solving the best way to adapt this novel and

like serve the material and also make something that is sellable and ends up sort of like dumbling into this. Right. It's like the guy who like creates. silly putty while trying to remove wallpaper glue or whatever. Yeah. Player Witch Project is actually it is a great comparison

to this movie also because it is another movie that you watch where you're like this isn't real, right? Because my wife was like, is this based on a true story? And I'm like, no. Like, people didn't vanish in like a mystical way. But you watch it and you're like, this is a real thing

that happened in Australian history. It feels weirdly real and there also was the cultural reputation that preceded this movie of the book being framed almost as like a mini Fargo is this real. Right. Like what inspired this. Right. God, Blair Witch is the best.

How do we, I guess we would do the series on Patreon. Yeah, that's what we've talked about. It's a weird movie to talk over. But yeah, anyway. I can do it. Watch. All right. We're not doing Blair Witch. I still maintain the scariest stuff

in Blair Witch is at the beginning. I don't, or maybe that's crazy. But I do, I love that movie. It's incredible. David, yes. Watch this. Watch this.

Can you tell me what's going on? I'm trying to hit home. But it's a foolish effort because nothing hits home. Like home cooking. That's true. Oh, boy. Well, it's really tough, man. Wait, Griffin, what are you doing?

I'm trying to hit home, but nothing hits as hard as home cooking. I just need a way to beat the winter blues, not get to loy. something kind of unsatisfying. It's much easier if I could choose for maybe 100 recipes every week. Cuisines from around the world. Let's see. I have 99 right here in my desk, but that's not 100. And we might have to outsource this job to someone else. How about our friends at Hello Fresh? Yes, Hello Fresh is a place that makes it easy to do more home cooking every year with recipes that feel good and taste delicious night after night. They got more than 35 high protein recipes each week. Mediterranean options. GLP 1 friendly options.

They've got sustainably sourced seafood. They've got 100% antibiotic and hormone-free chicken. They got three times the seafood for no upcharts. That upchurch is gone. They're beefing up the seafood. They've got grass-fed steak rib-eyes. They've got seasonal produce, pears, apples, asparagus. I love to entertain, of course, at my palatial estate.

Yeah, of course. I've been there so hot. My manner. I love nothing more than when I can impress guests by whipping out a great recipe that I have cooked all by myself for the dinner parties that I throw nightly. And HelloFresh is great for that, but also great just if you want to treat yourself. Ben, any recipes you've been jamming on hard recently? Oh, yeah. Actually, I was just checking out old school barbecue pork sloppy dose. Ooh!

That's a super high protein item. Slop it up. Yep. And we mentioned seafood. There is, of course, prep and baked hexmex salmon tacos. That is exciting, because I'm on a bit of a seafood diet right now, if you catch my meaning.

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Free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only varies by plan. That is Hellofresh.com slash check 10 FM. 1-0 FM. I'm going to open the dossier about Picnic and Hanging Rock. Lady Joan Lindsay wrote this book. She was a painter. She studied art at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne.

She wrote unpublished plays. and then she wrote a debut novel under a pseudonym and didn't, and this is all in like the 20s and 30s and didn't become successful until she was in her 60s and 70s. She wrote a book called Time Without Clocks. Sounds cool. Facts soft and hard. I assume nobody has read these books.

Say that last one. Facts soft and hard. CTS? It sounded like you were saying fats, like fats domino. Fats dominoes. Soft and hard. Dominoes. No, I don't know what those books are about.

But those came before 1967's picnic at Hanging Rock. She was labeled a bit of a mystic by her friends, sort of said that she could see things. Others couldn't. New things without being told. Could tell what had happened in the past. I mean, what? Apparently, this is what her friend said about her.

Time without clocks refers to the fact that she could sort of stop clocks and watches in her presence. I mean, cool. And, I mean, she sounds cool. Yeah. Get her on the podcast. I think she might be very dead, but maybe we can come, you know, summon her from another time. If there's anyone, we can summon it's her. And also...

Sounds like it. She probably likes League of Their Own. Now, Hanging Rock is a real place. She'd had a weird dream about a picnic there. She knew this place well from her childhood holidays. And she wakes up from this dream and she can feel the breeze blowing through the trees and hear the laughter. And, like, she starts writing and wrote. this in 10 days, supposedly.

Yes. The novel. As though possessed, correct. Now, the novel opens with whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is Fact or Fiction, my readers must decide for themselves. As the fateful picnic took place in the year 1900 and all the characters who appear in this book are long since dead, it hardly seems important. And the book was warmly received, but much like the opening of Fargo, it, like, sparked

a bunch of fucking conversation of, is she trying to convince us this? is real. Is this a con? Is this like a scandal that's been covered up? Here is a painting called At Hanging Rock by William Ford that inspired her as well.

Exactly. And indeed, as you point out, she kind of does the Fargo thing of like, is it true or not? To her true is different. That's how she puts it. And so, you know, The Peter Weir had made Homesdale, right, Griff, which is like, is it a short film or is like a TV movie?

It's like 50 minutes long. Yeah, he made a couple 50 minute guys. I haven't seen Homesdale yet. I watched his section called Michael of an Omnibus about young people in Australia. Okay. That's very good. But Homesdale is seemingly the one that got him on the map. And it was the movie that attracted the attention of Pat Lovell who was like a,

an Australian sort of show-bizzy person. She was like a TV person. Yeah. And she kind of takes the book to Peter. He was writing Cars Day Paris, right? So he hadn't, you know, even started work on that. And she leaves the book with him.

He reads it late into the night, can't put it down. He loved that it was open-ended. Like, he's basically reading the book being like, they better not solve this, and then they don't. The quote I heard of say... That it's not Sherlock Holmes. He always thought about... Hitchcock saying that a mystery

was the hardest kind of story to crack. But in his experiences of viewer, he always felt disappointed when mysteries had to solve themselves. Well, because Sherlock Holmes, it is annoying when he's like, actually it was a robot, you know, and then... Sometimes it's awesome. Sometimes it's awesome. Excuse me, David, if Sherlock Holmes said

it was a robot, that would be awesome. The Hound of a Baskervilles was a big fucking robot. That would be cool. No, but it's very hard to make the ending that is more satisfying than the anticipation and the mystery, which I think what he was saying, that often it feels like, even if an ending is, like, surprising or catchy,

that it still isn't as exciting as the tension at the center. Kind of how I felt about weapons. Interesting. I mean, yes. You know, I was like, ooh, where are these? I hope I don't find out where these kids went. Then they were like, it was a witch.

It was a witch. It was a witch, or she did a specific thing. She did very, all this stuff. She did some very specific things. She had a very particular set of skills. She does. Tangling hair around a sense. Cut a guy.

Water's involved. A bowl of water. But yes, he read this and was like, I fucking love that this just doesn't have an ending. That it doesn't solve it. That's my perfect kind of mystery movie. He meets with her because he has to be approved

by her to make the movie. They meet. And at a certain point he says, forgive me. But can I ask you? I'm not supposed to ask you this, but is it true? Oh, the novelist you're saying. He asks the novelist. Yes. He was in fact, specifically he was told don't ask this.

The only thing we forbid you from doing is asking her if it's real. And she said, I really don't want to discuss that. Please don't ask again. Wow. But then she also said...

She still was into it. She was like, you can make the movie. I believe she says something to him to the effect of it feels true to me in a way. And that his interpretation of it was this is in some way

in conversation with some experience she had that she would not share. Obviously, it is set in a time she didn't, you know, would not have lived through in that way, but it felt like in the same way that it came out of a dream, it was some processing of something that she had deeply repressed,

which is why she was so non-committal always. And it was sort of a warped interpretation. And then for us watching the movie, like watching someone else doing their best to, like, honor that experience that someone else had, that's interesting. Yes, and he also asked her, he said, you don't need to explain it to me, but can you tell me,

is there a definitive answer in your mind? And she said yes. Wow. Right. She said portal. Well, he was like, do they just fall down a crevasse? Dimension X? Dimension X.

Are there aliens? It's something supernatural, whatever. And she goes, I know what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of what he needed to know even if he didn't need to be told. Right.

He needed that mood to exist in some way. Yes. He's recommended David Williamson and Australian playwright to write the book. Doesn't happen, but that guy does end up writing Gallipoli and Europe for Living Dangerously. So they do work together. But he suggests a guy called Cliff Green,

who wrote the screenplay, who said the whole thing was a magical experience. This is what I like about him. This is the quote I like that. JJ highlighted. The first 20 minutes of the film were easy to write because it's straight line chronologically. But the moment when Edith comes screaming down the hill

becomes a more complex story. So much of it is atmosphere and setting. It's really a book about the atmosphere of Australia. Love that that's, like, again, that this guy just reads the book and gets it, that, like, I am not, you know, being asked to make this more linear or make this more about something in a way a movie needs to be about something. You know what I mean?

Like, it'd be so easy to read this book and be like, okay, but, you know, it can't just be about the atmosphere of Australia, whatever that fucking means, right? Like, it's, you know, it's got to be more about, like, no, and then a bunch of guys came with metal detectors and waved them around hanging. rock and then a bunch of, you know, spiritualists came or whatever, you know, like, however the, I mean, there was a TV miniseries version of this recently, right? I know. I kind of wanted to watch it.

What was that like? I mean, I don't know. Like, what does that do to the story? There's a musical that has been like, it just finished a run here in New York. I was trying to get to it. But like, it's been like 15 years of like redevelopment. This is a story that people keep coming back to. I just want to throw out a little bit and like just move back one step for one second.

The bizarreness of this project coming together in the way that it did, Patricia Lovell, the person you mentioned, who reached out to Weir after seeing his short film, was like, as a bad analog, like the Kelly Rippa of Australia. Like, someone who had started in radio and then was like a children's TV presenter, and then was like a morning television person, and, like, did not have a footing in film, reads this book, decides I should option this. Right. And I've seen this short.

film from a guy who hasn't made a feature yet. And I'm going to reach out to him where Peter Weir's like, when I got the call, it didn't even fucking make sense what was being presented to me, why she was the person, why she would believe in me. And then when she brings him to meet with Joan Lindsay, he and Joan Lindsay hit it off immediately. And she was by all accounts a very kind of tough, guarded customer. And everyone's just like, this feels like the right combination of people, even though it belies any sort of traditional thinking.

They could barely scrap together a budget, obviously. They're promising to make a movie with no resolution. It's not an easy sell. The bookhead was at least famous in some way. They get 220,000 pounds is how he puts it. About $440,000 Australian dollars. You know, their money is laminated. Yeah.

It's like plastic because they all go in the beach. They all go in the water. Australians are going to get so mad at me on this miniseries because everything I know about Australia is from uninformed opinions that British people had that I learned what I lived in Britain. and Bluey. I was going to say. And Bluey presents a very utopian vision of Australia.

Bluey makes you think they're the best of us. Right. And I have noticed anytime we talk about Australia on this podcast, your British upbringing comes into a point where you're like... They're very, you know, they look down on them. But you describe them like they're a bunch of loony tunes. That's how hot British people talk about. You said they're always in a jail cell.

Like British people are English people, I should say, because it's not British people. English people are basically like Scottish people or like drunk madmen. Welsh people are like simpletons. Australians are just, right, like, raving criminals living in this, like, semi-lawless landscape. You make sideswipe comments as if Beyond Thunderdome is toned down from the everyday life of the modern Australian. And you're like, oh, what a fine place this is. Right. Have they solved emotional intelligence?

Are they the ones? The McElroy brothers, my brother, my brother. my brother and Peter Weir, Hal and Jim McElroy, who produced this and also produced Cars that ate Paris. Yeah. And later produces, produced the last wave.

They said they were having such a hard time getting Cars that ate Paris off the ground. They knew how difficult it was for that movie not having like a clean hook and a weird title and like a murky plot that one of the strategic decisions they make is we're already thinking about how to sell this movie that's not going to satisfy in a conventional mystery way. Let's make the girls who disappear as like ethereal and poetic and enticing as possible

not just so we can put them at the center of the poster but so that the tension of the movie comes from the rug pull of oh shit they're gone. Right. That's the dreaminess. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like really hook you into these girls.

Right. A psycho framing that they pitched to weird. and he's on board with, with, like, how do we make the first 30 minutes so intoxicating and even just the visual language of these girls,

and their flowing white dresses at the front of the poster with these dreamy color scheme, and then we're going to freak you out. And I think that on rewatch, a thing that I kind of, like, vaguely remembered being left with, I think this movie maybe peaks

in those first 30 minutes for me. It is... There's nothing like it. That's the thing. I don't know if you can sustain that mood. Yeah, no, 100%. Right. So it's sort of unavoidable.

Yeah. But you are a little bit like take me back, you know, when it's right. Like, I just, it is a movie where I'm like, I'm not sure I care who's sleeping with each other or who's having a conversation right now. Mm-hmm. Not, but that's not true because I love the movie. You know, of course, I do. But you know what I mean? No, I love the movie also.

Yes. And those first 30 minutes are like, that that's the thing that if you don't watch it for four years, you're like, yeah, you're full in on. It's also why her screaming is so upsetting, even though, like, nothing, you know, violent happens and nothing, you know, nothing really at all happens. But it's like Grace Zabriski screaming in Twin Peaks, which Jane, of course, has discussed on the show with us. Where you're just like, Jesus, why is she making that? I don't know. Like, it snaps you out of the reverie in a really disturbing way. What, Chris?

No, I also forget which ones are which, and hopefully JJ has answered this. Which girl is which? No. Oh, okay. I see women as different people. No, I can differentiate. I could not in this. You know, there are like, there are some characters at the picnic.

You know, you're like, oh, glasses girl, but. Yes. No, what I was going to say is, where is Jackie? Jackie Weaver is the maid. She's not one of the girls at the table. She's the maid getting a little something, something on the side. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yeah.

But it is, she is one of those people where you know Jackie Weaver in the present tense. Right. Reintroduced as like, you know, middle-aged character-ra. She's all fucking have you. Right. Right. Kind of like one of the weirdest two-time Oscar nominees. Oh, rules. But like, she's in this.

She has a run of Australian work. Then she kind of like disappears from Australian film for a long time. What's the second nom for? Obviously the first. Silver Lange's Playbook. Right. And she's like, oh, fucking have you. Where's the money?

Was she like in that one? Yeah. I've only seen it once. She said. Go Eagles. Oh, fuck. Fucking have you, Eagles. Yeah.

Wooder ice. Wooder ice. Wooder ice. John. What I was going to say. Just pissing off Philadelphians too now. Yes. I think five-year engagement is the movie she makes right after getting the Animal Kingdom nomination.

That was her first Hollywood film ever. Right. And even before Animal Kingdom, she hadn't done a movie in like a decade, had mostly been doing theater. Sure. Like she's in the most iconic. Australian film in a supporting part and then even still has this drips and drabs career doesn't even become like Australian character actor royalty until decades later. And you see her, you hear that she was in picnic at Hanging Rock and you just looking at her face present day or like,

it's going to be so hard to pick out who she is because there's no way she looked like this when she was. I think I even like Googled like what character that she plays and then was like, well, you're not Sarah. Right. Who fucking knows. You're not Irma. Irma. Have you seen Fearless Jane, the Peter Weir movie with Jeff Bridges? No. It is another movie where I think the whole thing is very good and the first 30 minutes feel transcended.

That's true. And similarly dreamlike. I mean, not similar to this, but just, you know, just in a fuggy kind of state. He's come to replicating this style and has a similar like, well, that movie rocks. Reality needs to splash water in your face. This tone can't maintain forever. And it is one of these movies where you're like,

it's not like the movie falls off a cliff after the first 30 minutes, but the first 30 minutes are just activating something that is like... Yeah, it's thrilling. It's a miracle. It still feels otherworldly. It's funny that we're saying that, right, the, oh, no, he never really replicated this tone again. And then I'm like, no, you're right about fearless.

And I'm like, the Truman Show is like that. Truman Show... Especially before the... Also has a similar kind of structure of, like, 40 minutes of, like, what is this weird transmission from space? Yes. And the reason I was thinking about Dead Poets Society is because I imagine, like, the big difference

is that, like, this doesn't have, like, characters like that movie has, maybe. No, but also. But it certainly has this, like, boarding school, repression. Right. You watch Dead Poet Society now, and you're like, that's Ethan Hawk, that's Robert Sean Lander.

But, like, I don't know if you felt that way as much when that movie came out and there was a bunch of boys. Part of those guys becoming those, guys was that movie takes its time to like sell you on each of those guys individually versus the inverse of this which is like we need to sell you on a vibe and an energy of what these girls represent that is enjoyable for you to watch because we don't have time to build them individually as characters. I don't have time like I feels like the movie is disinterested in like it's just kind of nasty

all the way through and like even like those those men like the school mistress and then at the end of the movie when you just like find out in quick succession that like the two main characters left like die yes very like it's it's not logical it's not like emotionally logical or it's clear that it's like clearing space to do something else then yeah so when they're like and everyone died i'm like yes right i suppose you would never get over this everything's on raffles right already at this point when you were saying like i don't really care about the conversations towards the end of who's sleeping with who when it gets into the this don't me i hate gossip you hate you hate it This movie is in that like somewhat limited canon of decade plus later director's cuts that take footage out.

Oh, interesting. He trimmed it down about 10 minutes. It is hard to find a theatrical version now. Wow. Like the Criterion has always only put out the director's cut, which is about 10 minutes shorter. And the 10 minutes that are cut out are mostly in the last 30 minutes of the film and are kind of shoe leather stuff. It's like more stuff with the coachman and shit. None of it's bad, but it does feel interesting that he makes this film in 1975.

And then in like 97 or 98, he's like in decades of rewatching this film as part of retrospectives, maybe we just get to the end faster. Maybe past the first act, I could have tightened this up. Well, because it's like, it's such a spell for those first 30 minutes. Yeah. And then it's not exactly that the spell is lifted. It's more that like the spell just has. this like slow like denou mall yes yeah just give you a little more context on the film obviously money comes from australia film development corporation in south austral you know like government money

um but uh he says like the australian what new wave is basically happening concurrently with indie dramas being made in austral if that make he's like the people came first then came the money like i feel like the country starts to get a way of like, oh, there's something artistically happening here with Australian film that is brand new, and we can give a little money to him, not like a ton of money to it. We recalls it kind of like the sort of hippie hang, you know, like post-hipy kind of thing. You know, like these people, the flower children, the anti-war movement, are now kind of just rattling around getting a little older and some of them are starting to make movies.

It's similar to what like Easy Rider kick started over in Hollywood. and he said like that's they wanted to put the money into that to angry young person movies character studies things that were kind of like sexually charged uh social comedies and when they were pitching this movie even though the book was successful people were like who the fuck wants to watch a period piece that that they were facing so much opposition to like that's not what's going on in the culture right now and that he was so frustrated that there was this limiting in a film market, a film scene that had finally like opened up and they were already trying to pigeonhole it to.

This is the only thing we export. And that after Picnic at Hanging Rock, people were angry that he was making the last wave and that he wasn't sticking with period films because Picnic had had such a big impact that everyone flipped the other way. Weir's take is that the rock literally opened up and swallowed them, by the way.

Whoa, he's got a... He's got his own solution. Over the years, he talked with her a lot. Yeah. Over, you know, as after he makes the movies, she sort of trusts him more. Mm-hmm. Where she's like, basically, like, of course she made it up, quote, unquote, but there's... The rock opened up and swallowed down.

Listen, the fucking rock. Just eating people. Nom-nom, no, no, no, no. Right. Fucking rock. More like, hungry rock. Hungry rock. Yeah.

And, like, then eventually, at one point, he's like, did a UFO get them? And she's like, maybe? And he's like, all right, you're too much. Like, and then she dies. but then Peter Weir is like, he's like, I just had to have an answer in my head and I've decided that like they just got swallowed by essentially the earth. I love that. Right. But I don't know.

You know, and he also was basically like, she was kind of shocked by the movie when she saw it for the first time and said like he kind of changed the tone. And I didn't really write it with that kind of feeling, which is interesting to think about. but like, you know, what she was imagining versus this sort of dreamy thing that she's seeing. Yeah. But they were friends for life. But that's part of the, this is a dream that felt really real to her. Totally.

You know, she doesn't need that translation in tone to sell the lapse in logic because it makes emotional sense to her, which is the part that I think made him. Weir feel like this was in conversation with something real she had experienced. Sure. Some emotion. Some emotional truth. Yes.

Right. Peter Weir's like, obviously a bunch of girls didn't just vanish. Right. That would be in the news, even in 1900. Like, and there's no evidence that that happened. But that's what I think he was smart about talking about him like kind of landing on the style pragmatically is like she thinks of this like it's the French connection. And if I present this as the French connection, people are going to ask 8,000 questions. What do you mean?

Where did they go? If it feels unreal from the beginning, that's part of the general. that's part of the juice. He also said that when he went to the real location, once he had signed on to make the film, he was like, oh, fuck. There was like an energy. Everyone, when they shot there said,

like, it was spooky as hell and we hated it. When you see it in the movie, no offense, I was like, that's hanging rock? That's all that good. It's just, it's like, they're like going on this long trip to hanging rock. Yeah. Australia sucks, guys.

No, I'm kidding. I'm totally kidding. It seems to rock. They get these girls, mostly from Adelaide, from, like, fancy schools. Like he basically like realizes they looked at lots of girls, but they realized like, no, we need kind of like posh private school girls who are 16 years old. Oh, this was the thing I was going to say. What?

Before I lost my point, a thing that has never happened before in the history of this podcast, that he, they dubbed over a majority of the school girls. Because for him, he was like, I'm ready to cast two different parts. The look and the energy is so important that I will cast based on that even if they can't deliver. lines. And there's a lot of them. And get voiceover actors to like sell the line delivery later because it's not like they have that much dialogue. Well, it's one of the things that I love about the first 30 minutes of the movie is that and the quality like continues on, but that like painterly quality where it's like you're almost looking at these like wide shots that look like these old, these old like impressionist paintings, you know, like these like groups of of girls in nature.

Yeah. Yes. And like literally holding fabric. over the lens to make things feel more, not synthetic, but like, pointedly artificial. Yeah. And Unreal. Yeah. I'm just going to keep using the word Unreal. This movie was made using Unreal Engine, right?

This was the original... It's actually an Unreal tournament. It is. Yeah. But, like, they, the way the producers and weird... You know, it's like, they were a bunch of hysterical teenage girls. Like, in the best way. Like, they just had the right energy.

once you got them all together. Most of them never act again. Yeah, one of them has a story about like the author seeing her and calling her Miranda and being like, it's been so long. Everyone seems a little high on like how insane it was to make this movie and how it felt like it was real. Do you know what I mean?

And I'm not being dismissive of this. I was going to say, I love your dance between loving movies more than anything. I love it. Sometimes you read shit like this and you're like, fucking get over yourself. So what? You made a 10 out of 10 masterpiece. It's not that. It's more just like you're telling this anecdote of like the author was looking at me with shimmering eyes addressing me as this long lost girl in her past or whatever. And like that was obviously very meaningful. But it does feel like everyone got kind of like intoxicated by like being in this location, being in these costumes. It's cool though. You make movies. I make movies. I make movies. I make great movies. That's exactly how it feels. You kind of need it to. If you're going to make a fucking movie, you need to be like, well, like, if it's, you know, if. It gets very tarot cardy, you know?

It gets very like, whoa, this must be cosmic. It's so funny how people only talk about movies like that, right? Like, where it's like, yeah, we kind of got like... Something's happening. Or they were like, yeah, making that sex scene was really weird. They had to, like, put baby powder on me every take and like every setup is really boring. You know, where you're like, wasn't it awesome to do this thing of like, no, boring and technical... Probably because it's...

Amazon fulfillment. It's like there's the like the Marvel, like the Marvel, like the... Robert Downey Jr. Land way of making a movie. You know, there's the like, all right, where, you know, call me out when you're ready for me. I'm going to be in my trailer. You have a Jane Land, right?

The Jane Land is just a big box of jelly beans. You're inside the box. Like it's a fucking ball. Yeah. But then like if you're, yeah, the other option for making a movie is that like you care a lot. And everyone is not sleeping and you enter a state that's like one step below war level psychosis. And by the end of that, yeah, you're going to be like that fucking rock, man. I mean, I guess it was because I was digging this movie and the surrounding stuff.

But I ended up watching last night a peak pandemic Zoom 20-year reunion of the Virgin Suicides cast. Sure. Okay. Heartnet. Heartnet, Dunst. Dunst. And the other daughters, most of whom... Right, didn't really...

Right. One of them was young Jenny and Forrest Gump, but that was kind of her last major, major role. Isn't one of them, A.J. Cook? Yes. Who's like the criminal minds girl for the next... She's still on that show. Yes.

God bless her. I watched fucking Final Destination 2, and I was like, what happened to this person? She's really good. And you're like, oh, she made $47 trillion on $800. She's been on criminal. since I, like, started college, and I'm 40 years old. Here's what's so crazy about this.

If I can go off for half a second here. She joins, like, four or five seasons in, and you're like, oh, late. She only did 600 episodes of Criminal Minds. She's now on a Criminal Minds spin-off, I believe. No, you are incorrect. Criminal Minds has merely been retitled Criminal Minds Evolution. Insane. Yes.

Okay. And the other thing that happened is at one point. Why, by the way? Because Criminal Minds went off the air for two whole years, and CBS was just like, need it back! And so they just brought back the same cast, Montania's back, AJ Cook is back. They called it Criminal Mind's Evolution, I guess, to

distinguish that something had happened. Because Charmander used to be on the show. Right, now he's Charmillion. Charmillion, yeah. But they at one point kicked her off the show because they were like, I gotta tighten the budget. Yes, they kick her off for you. And fans protested so much, they brought her back.

And even still, you're like, she joined late, she was kicked off, the show died, and yet she's been doing it for... Why are you bringing up the urgent suicide soon? I'm sorry, what was this, the original? They were talking about how, like, for, like, Dunst and Partnett, they had done other things, but those things felt way more traditional up until that point, and this was the first kind of, like, cool, artsy movie they had worked on. And the rest of the group were either, like, non-actors or actors who were kind of at the beginning of their career.

Right, or James Woods. The young cast. Yeah, sure. And they were all, like, it was kind of incredible how well you established. an energy. Like, not in a woo-woo way, but you created this feeling of like, we're all in this together,

this is the vibe, it is safe, it is protected, it is experimental. It's such a huge part of like, because it's, you know, it's like circus shit. Right. And like, it's not just like for the viewers at home. Yeah.

It's like if you got a, yeah, we talked about portals a lot on this new movie. Cool. It's just like, we're going through a portal, guys. Welcome to the portal. We're on the other side of the portal now.

you know, everyone is so sleep deprived and also like in a manic state of something that like people are ready to buy into that. I feel like Paul Tom Sanderson always talks about time travel. That like that's what he's trying to push everyone through. And even less like, because he's not literally depicting periods in a very accurate way most of the time.

It's like the feeling of that. But it is like there are things. that are just feel like the technical work and still through everyone being on the same page have a consistent energy to them. But this is a movie where as much as it doesn't feel like we're tried to design that by purpose, everyone was kind of in the suspended state the whole time.

There's something like uncanny in both... Yeah. In the energy. Yes. And then part of that is Rachel Roberts, so we can talk about how she got involved in this. But, like, seemingly was a Gene Hackman and Royal Tanabombs-esque terror to this young cast and this young director in a way that, like, only helped the movie. She's an Oscar nominee from The Sporting Life, and they structure everything around.

It was going to be this actress Vivian Merchant. She was the original who is from Alfie. The, like, the woman, the boarding school. The, yes, the mean woman. Mrs. Appleyard. Yes. And Vivian gets ill

She can't come to Australia She's a British actor Was married to Harold Pinter? Famously super chill guy And we're was like The way she would perform His material is what I was looking for In the intensity and the sharpness

Gets ill They lose her like 10 days Before she's supposed to arrive in Australia They have to find someone In less than 24 hours basically To get him on a plane Rachel Roberts says yes Immediately

But also says I won't arrives and says I won't wear her wig which is fair right she said there's a supernatural kind of like tradition in the British theater

that if you wear a wig designed for another actor your production is cursed yes and Peter Weir's like well we're in Australia and this is a movie so maybe that doesn't count and they were like she was so fucking strongheaded about it

and beyond that shows up in Australia with her own wig, which is the wig she wears in the movie. And everyone's like, well, we hate that. I'm team her on this one. I agree. She's right. But they all talk about being like, we got to talk her down from this. She's also just like fucking with their, you know, best laid plans and they make this tiny movie. I'm sure she's pulling rank. Come on.

That was the whole thing. Like, how much of this is pulling rank versus like how much of this is she's on her own wavelength and which can be hard to communicate with. You're doing a movie. Uh-huh. Let's say, um, Thomas Middletish. Okay. Good job casting that guy. Things are going good. Yeah. A lot of great decisions. He's got his own wig. Yeah. Probably does. Then they hire you. Yeah. Because he drops out last minute. Yeah. I would add, would you wear that wig? First, I would ask, did he ever wear this wig in his personal life or is it on camera? Has this wig gone to any locations? Meanwhile, you've got the perfect wig sitting at home with you. No, I think she was creatively right. I don't think I'd have any hangups about it in the same. way? Beyond that, whatever this energy was works in the

movie so well because you are like what's wrong with this woman, but in a perfect way. It's just so funny that the chain of it is like, what the fuck is she talking about? We don't have the money for another wig. And she's like, don't worry, I'm bringing my own. She shows up with the wig. Everyone's like, we hate this. How do we talk her down from the wig?

And it's like the lady killers where they're submitting one person at a time to talk her down from the wig and the person comes out the door bloodied and is like, she's not moving on this. And they're all like we hated the wig, we still hate the wig, it took 10 years to recognize she was right. She was totally right.

While we were filming, we were like, this wig's gonna fuck up the entire movie. Blossess wig. But that they were all terrified by her. She had a reputation for getting dead drunk. Yes. And doing an impression of a dog

that she was apparently very skilled at that would quickly turn into her just being committed to acting like a dog for the rest of a party. My daughter does that a lot. Would start biting people on the legs and shit. She doesn't bite people. She was like Rex Reed's third wife of six. I'm sorry, what? And Rex Reed? I'm sorry, not Rex Reed. Yeah, I was about to say. I'm sorry. You about Rex Reed? Rex

Rex, Redd don't have no wives. Rex Harrison. Excuse me. She was married to Rex Harrison, who then had three wives after her and spent the rest of her life trying to get Rex Harrison back in between divorces. She dies of suicide five years after this film. That's stupid. She was 53 years old. Yes. Was like an incredibly extreme, somewhat tortured woman. Yes, totally. And like have this effect on everyone else working on the film.

They viewed her the way she sort of the energy she holds over all the characters in the film. Harrison, legendary stickman seven lives. But it's not like a nurse ratchet. You know, you're not like, well, she is the breakout. No, no, she's very woven into the movie. Totally. The other.

Yes. Yes. The other fascinating thing is there's the early scene. I think it's basically her introduction where she's on the steps of the school addressing all the students. There will be a dinner serve when you're home. And that was maybe her first scene she shot and she does like two takes and she goes to Weir and she's like, could you just put a tape mark on a sea stand and send all the actresses away? the way they are looking at me with the level of fear they have in their eyes is throwing me off and I can't concentrate in the dialogue

because I feel too bad. And he sends them away and was like she nailed it in one take. And like her theatrical training was like oh, she can just do whatever you ask her to do. And he was like, she was the first time I had worked with an actor where I could give such a specific note

of try doing it with a little more of this energy and she would make an adjustment. You would see that dial change. Sure. that would be almost like it's, it's unnoticeable to anyone else. Yeah, when I went from working with like non-actors

or early career actors to like trained theater actors, it's a crazy thing to experience. That she was so fine-tuned, she didn't need a created reality around her, that she could just take what you asked of her and give it to you immediately, but that the energy throughout had the proper effect on all the other actors. Yeah.

Yeah. She's in one of my favorite movies of all, time, which is Saturday night and Sunday morning. She's amazing in that movie. She rocks, and she's amazing in this movie, obviously. She is one of the few performances, I remember, versus the girls where you're right. You're more just like the vibe is so correct.

Russell Boyd, the great cinematographer, who shoots all of Weir's movies. As you said, Griff puts all these filters and nets, which shoot close-ups at 32 frames a second, and then cut that together with 24-frame-per-second dialogue. shots to like basically make things feel strange like is like because he's basically like we have no money right like and we're saying to him like we have no money you have to make things feel weird yeah like you just have to do tricks um and so they would basically be like can i shoot you a little faster don't blink and then we'll like mix it with regular speed stuff and it'll you'll barely

detect what's going on but it'll just feel odd and that's that's his big trick Rick. Does this make any sense, Jane? Yeah? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did a little frame rate stuff on my new one. Frame fudgeon? That's fun. A little long car Y, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yes. I mean, the king of that. They did very shallow depth of field.

Obviously, they put, like, gauze over the lens. I mean, it's often literally, like, bridal veil fabric. Right. They would go buy bridal veil stuff. John Seal is the camera operator on it. Obviously, John Seale is a legendary cinematographer in his own right. And, you know, they just wanted to capture this kind of hallucinatory, rhythmic, mesmeric kind of atmosphere. I have a question. Please.

I'm going to pose it to Yee, David, as the foremost expert on Australia. Here we go. Jesus. Why? So, cool. She had this dream. He made this movie. They made it dreamy. they never solved the mystery

but why does this capture Australia that is a great question so like what what does he mean that screenwriter said this of course Cliff Green by like he must mean this mood

I'm gonna take back that he must mean anything because I am not definitive on anything here but he might mean like this mood of the country quote unquote civilizing right which is what this school represents the school is so English right like it feels like

Because I feel like so much of Australian culture is this push and pull of like Well, we're from England Like so many people who came to Australia To settle the country originally Are being sent there from England To the English Empire, British Empire. You know, and so like we're gonna build our own England here

But it's like you're in a completely different environment There's people already here You know, you're creating a culture that is not English But then there's like Englishness That's being clung to with this like This school. Well, to be really blunt about it It's like here's second.

generation colonizers trying to be like, we got our boots on the ground, now let's start building Britain to different climate. And this is a movie that's literally about like the earth attacking that. Yeah, that's right. Right. They're like, right, they're violating this sort of hostile space, like natural space.

Like, it's not like a inviting place that they're in. No. It's pretty, I guess. It's hot. But it's hot. There's snakes. They weren't about those. makes about 18 times. I mean, it's the whole thing for me with Australia where, again, my

reasonable and correct opinion of what Australia is like is like scorpions far from the sky on you every 30 seconds. They're like, girls, you're going on a picnic to hanging rock today. I'm like, bring your spear gun. Like, you know, yeah. Just for context, just for the listener, my, my brother moved to Australia like less than two weeks ago. He just got there. After watching, living and sitting. Yeah. But he is, he is as a, of 21 days ago at the time of this recording. Did he get bit by a snake? No, I'm just saying.

It's just so funny to like talk to my brother and be like, I'm loving it here. And David's like, fucking hell is taken over the earth. I am well aware that Sydney, I think, especially is incredibly cosmopolitan city. It's very nice. Yeah. I know Australia is nice. I live in America.

We can barely feed people here. Like, most of these countries are doing all right. It's quite a shitty place right now. To us. Yes. We'd kill to go to hanging rock Yeah Australia maybe got You kept my ass to hang in rock

You got snakes and bats in the woods Here we got them in the fucking Oval Office You know what I'm saying? Whoa I was told this was not a political podcast We lied to you And this is the most political podcast Do you want some whole and or raw milk?

Yeah What if that's something all in on that this year? Raw ass David I was going to say It is a through line of yours work the Australian films very much feel about that tension of Australia being a culture taken, built hostily upon another land

that can never totally be conquered, right? The history, the people, the actual, like, geographic landscape and the floor and fauna and all this sort of stuff. And then when he goes over to Hollywood, it does feel like his movies retain that core theme of the tension between two levels of society, you know,

or two aspects of reality fighting each other. That is true. It is true. Is it not, David? This one is like, I feel like everything that we're saying, yes. And, like, where is then the space for, like, the thing that I actually remember about, like, what this movie makes me feel like? And I presume for Sophia Coppola the same thing, which is just like, how about all that, like, pent up sexual energy? Well, that's the big thing we have to talk about here.

Right. Which I assume is another thing. I don't know much about Australia in the turn of the century. but there were sexual revolutions happening all over at that time. People were reckoning more with, like, can we still keep women in a box and teach them to be good proper girls who, you know, never misbehave, right? Have to wear those awful corsets? Yes, and, you know, there's, you know.

God, we talk about how hot they must have been making this movie. When you see the guys in, like, fucking four-piece suits. Or the policemen in, like, an all-black uniform? Here's my line. I told you I had one line watching this movie. said, I don't think you should wear white to hanging rock. It's a bad choice.

They're all, like every girl, flowing white dress. Right. Even without, even if you're not going to go on to hanging rock. Yeah. And get lost on hanging rock,

get swallowed by the rock. You probably don't want to be in that. Maybe we're like a picnic at hanging rock. A brown jumpsuit with crocs. Yeah. Maybe that's what you wear. It's like hanging rocks. Oh, man, those shoes too.

Those are not shoes for the word. For Hanging Rock. Yeah. No. I think this movie is tapping into in a way that's like very similar, very linked to Twin Peaks for me. Where it's like it's got the stream like logic. It's got the central mystery. But the core thing is sort of interrogating the unspeakable like a tension of sexual danger for young women in society.

Right. Like the whole movie is like working off of this kind of dreamlike fetishization of the purity of the kind of young girl in a painting, frolicking on a countryside and what no one wants to discuss, which is like the threat of danger that is surrounding them at all time just in their very being. But also their own, I mean, like, I think that the thing that's interesting in this one and that you see in, virgin suicides is like, like, whereas something like, um, and there are elements of it here. Yeah,

when that, that guy, I see him in like a top hat, that guy when he first shows up. He's like, in my brain, he's like, and he's like,

and he's like, he's like, a real like, Dickens kind of guy. But it seems like it takes a back seat to those girls being like, I'm taking off my knickers. Like,

I got to get up on this rock. They're pushing it. Ephoric. collect it, you know, they cut the heart cake. Yeah. It feels like, you know, they're pushing against a transgressive boundary. They're pent up. They got some energy.

They got to get out. But that's definitely the paired version suicides thing, which is like it's these swarms of young boys who are obsessed with the idea of these girls, their look, their energy, them being unattainable. Yet none of them are actually kind of the threat or the answer to what was going on inside of them, which is a little. unsolvable. And this movie

establishes such a web of men surrounding the rock and observing them where in a dumber movie you could see it being a not a whodunit

in a traditional sense. No, I thought of like I spit on your grave which would have been around the same time. You're pegging all these guys in the vicinity who are all kind of

clocking these girls and yet they're all at a pretty severe distance and they're all just completely freaked out by what happened. Yeah. And if anything

are trying to to rescue them. But it's like in the Twin Peaks way and Twin Peaks obviously like provides straight answers at a point, but it's incredibly straight answer. The most normal answers. But it's more like turning that sexual tension in both directions, what they're feeling internally and what is being projected onto them into a supernatural force that's just hanging over everything. Which I think is pretty cool. Really cool for like, Like, I, I, I, there are so many, like, um, like, Lindsay Anderson type movies about, like, boys going wild at school. Um, I can't think of a ton, like, like, between this and virgin suicides, like, or right, just in general.

The pent up, like, female sexual energy. Now, if I find Google movies about girls at boarding school is Google. Yeah. I recently, I was, I was, I, I recently asked chat GPT, uh, which I try to not use. You know, I try to not ask it, but I was like, I'm really curious about this AI. Like, if I asked it based on all of the information online about my new movie, which is called teenage sex and death at can't measmus. What do you think it is? Yeah.

In the style of a Jane Schoenberg movie. Like, I wanted to see how close it could get. And it said to me, I can't tell you that because you're asking me for descriptions of teenage sex and that is lewd and indecent. How? And it said, and it said, and it said, how dare you? Yeah. How could you ask me this question? I've put you on a list.

Jesus Christ. More like chat gentleman, PT. So above board. David? Right. Right. Right. I am correct.

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Ah, who's that? No. David, in fact, I see why you were confused. It sounded like a doorbell or perhaps even the ringing of a phone to introduce an ad read character. but in fact, it's on ad read character. It's an exciting new ad read prop. My hand chimes. Okay.

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Chime card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See chime.com for details and applicable terms. Here's what I'll say. It passes the back. This movie does. It does. Pass the part.

No, more talking about rocks than boys in this one. Absolutely. Snakes. And snakes. But I think you're right that like most, especially in a supernatural or vaguely like a horror, mystery adjacent thing. There is almost always, largely because of how few women got to tell these stories ever

in this medium, there was almost always this undercurrent of, like, is this pointedly kind of salacious and titillating? Are we demonizing the sexuality? Is the sexuality something that's kind of scary that has to be punished versus it all happening in this kind of like, the movie's like mercifully non-lawful. literalized in those ways and non-judgmental in a way that now feels like saying that is an ultimate faint praise award but in the 70s you're like this was not a thing anyone was fucking doing totally and like the the like you know this the sickness yeah if you try to like

find the culprit obviously like the culprit is very diffuse and kind of comes for them all by the end of the movie. Right. But that it's not a movie about like these girls and their hysteria. Right. And then they were like

struck down in this weird inexplicable tragedy. No, if anything, their like hysteria is the most humanizing thing about them. Yeah. You almost want them to be more hysterical

or anyone to be hysterical at a certain point. Yeah. Yeah. There's an article I read I just called it up on something called

Sinophilia Beyond by Tim Peel and I have no idea of what that site is, but I'm reading it, where he talks about like the, the Aboriginal idea of, I want to find the exact thing, dream time, where there's this sort of four aspects of Aboriginal dream time, the beginning of things, the lifeline influence of ancestors, the way of life and death, the sources of power in life, he's like he feels like this movie is about like they are you know encountering an ancient and aboriginal force that like they can't understand in some way that's like the sort of Australianness of this movie that it's like we continue to tamper with like a natural environment we we never understood in arriving here right and like

trying to civilize it uh he points out something that i certainly would never thought about which is that the girls go right to left when they enter the frame. Interesting. And the hero journey tends to be left to right and right to left is more unsettling. Have you ever heard that before? I've never considered this visual language.

I'm thinking about reading Hebrew. Absolutely. Or Farsi. Those classic right to left languages. He's got a lot of other ideas like that that are sort of interesting to consider. I feel like when I hear people talk

about that. Directors talk about that with intentionality. It's usually in terms of establishing a visual language of characters progressing versus regressing. It's interesting to make it a kind of like, are they going against cultural tides thing rather than like moving backwards in their own story. Right. Yeah. I think to me it's like the thing like that, like something like that is only as good as how much it like sticks with you subconsciously afterwards. And like when I think about the language of the girls' movement in this movie. I think the thing that sticks out more to me is just like how they're really like,

they're not really captured in close-ups that much until pretty like far into the movie or like it feels much more interested in this like, yeah, this this panoramic painted kind of aesthetic of like you're just seeing like 11 of them together wandering around. As sort of almost like a hive mind. Yeah, they're like animals at the, You know, out of their landscape or something. Did anyone see this movie not knowing that they would disappear?

Because it's so much part of the selling of the movie. Yeah. Because it's lovely to think about the idea of just watching it being like, what is this? Hangout movie. It's a cool hangout movie. Because the first 30 minutes are completely beguiling if you don't know that it's built up to something. Not beguile, but you're just like kind of squinting looking for...

Pick and a hangout rock. But they give it away in the beginning to... That's what I'm saying. I feel like there's no... It's too bad. And it was the whole selling point. Yeah. I'm sure on the on the TV adaptation, the picnic lasts for six episodes and they only disappear in episode of eight.

Flashbacks to the picnic. Oh, fuck. Are you serious? No, I don't know. I haven't seen it. Okay. You're right, though. It's flashbacks to the picnic and you see it from a lot of different people's perspective.

And by the end of it, you've learned something that starts with clarity. It sounds like someone knows how the process works for streaming television. Natalie Dormer plays the headmistress, right? She does. She's Mrs. Appal Yard. Let's see what the. fucking super structure kind of wig did they get her in?

Oh God, my God. Samara weaving was in there. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead, please. The series starts with her purchasing the house and being like,

I could build a school here. It's that one. At least it's not like explorers from like a hundred years ago being like and what shall we call this rock? It's kind of hanging. Yeah.

I don't know. It starts with the rock being straight and then you see the rock hanging rock. I mean, it sounds like the miniseries is a little more what I was described. being of like it's got a bunch of theorizing after.

Yeah, totally. That's how you filled those hours. Right. Like what did happen. Could it have been this? Could have been that. And that's definitely how you improve on this movie. It's a movie just screaming out for improvement.

Look. Tell me! There's this one element that I feel like sticks out to me a little bit. Okay, Ben's playing the music. The Pan Pipes. Yeah. It's so pervasive throughout the entire movie. Yeah.

But damn, did I vibe with that show? Yeah, no, it rocks. It may be actually. really appreciate pan flute again. And just to be clear, Ben isn't playing this from his console. He's whipped out a pan flute. And he's blowing,

hurt on that shit in between, throwing in some hot takes. I just remember it being such a thing in malls, pan flutes. You'd see him on the street. It's like when Petroliquist can like drink a glass of water while the dummy talks. He's saying and playing

the pan flute. I think the pan flute has gotten a much worse rap than it deserves. Agreed. Yeah. And I think it's like something about Enya and pure moods. That's exactly what it is. It's that 90s world music chill out compilation thing.

Yeah. Pan flute became associated. These are also the ones I'm hearing in my headphones are kind of like, I know panfluids. Like I love a deep, you know, that like, oh, yeah. Like Rainforest Cafe. Well, you're talking about the best restaurant in the world. basically they were looking for the sound of the movie to speak to the pamphlets and they found it and jim mackleroy said like he had just watched some you know documentary that there'd been this

weird haunting music and he called the producer they played it they they were like we love this it's george zamfeer is the the flutist floutist pan floutist sure uh and apparently uh was like i recorded all that shit years ago. You don't want that. You want some new stuff and start sending new stuff. And they're like, no, no, no, no. We want the like haunting pan flutes. Like that's what we're calling you, sir. I already missed the pan flute. And we just played it for a little while. I could listen to it all day and night. Ben's pulled up on the floor going through pan flute withdrawal. At this point, my main YouTube algorithm suggestion is like it's, it's like an eight bit image of like a night by a fire. And it's just 10 hours of that pan flute music. Yeah. Can I just say, I think you folks are right that there was like a cultural throwing the baby out with the bath water because Enya and fucking deep moods and whatever was seen as like. Which by the way, I love that.

That stuff rocks. This is exactly what I want to say. And here's the thing. We actually never. We have not gotten anywhere further in relaxing music technology. That was the peak. Everything people have tried to do since then to show us out. Backwards.

Jean-Michie. The X-Files theme with some drums underneath it. Fuck. The X-Files theme is so good. There's going to be a new X-Files, right? Ryan Cougler's producing his new X-Files. Oh, really? Yeah.

And, like, that's fine. Like, I'm all for new X-Files. I don't care. Like, I'm not worried about the sanctity of the X-Files, which is one of the... Don't touch the theme, though. The messiest franchises to ever exist. Sure. But it will be set in contemporary times?

Yeah. Yeah. Huh. But they better not mess with the theme. I asked Gillian Anderson on set if she was going to go back. She's in your movie. I've heard there's space for her. I forget what she said.

Oh, you forgot, huh? Sure me out. I asked someone that question. I was like, is DeCovny and Anderson back? And I was told, like, there's room for them to be back. Like, it sort of can go either way. I got a blockbuster pitch. I've got Skinner.

What if all three of them try hooking up? It'll work this time. Wait, wait, all three, sorry you saying Skinner's the third? Who's the, is that, was that his name? Mitch Pelleggie. Yeah, Skinner. He's still going. Who was the Robert Patrick here?

Also, the cigarette smoking man. Dogget. That guy's still alive. He's with us. It's why the bills can't win the Super Bowl. Cigarette Smoking Man is still alive. William B. Davis is the actor. I mean, the thing that happened with X-Files, which is like, I like the X-Files is

like foundational to my road growing up and all that is Chris Carter came back, did the new stuff. And it was, God bless it, so heinous. Yeah, it was rough. It was kind of like, can we take this guy out back? It is crazy. Give the Xbox to anyone else. Three times he was like, I think I'm ready to return. And people were like, yeah, movie sucks.

He's like, got it. Took the feedback. We're returning with a new season. Yay. Fuck, that sucks. Don't worry. I heard your feedback. Next season's going to be really different.

Just three times and five years. And every time to Coffney and Anderson bring it. Like, it's like they're just him. There's like a sushi restaurant. You remember that one? They're stuck in that. And it's like technology. You know, it's like, seriously.

It's Siri. It's X-Files doing Siri. Sometimes you don't have the rope of what people are thinking about anymore. You know, he let go to the rope. 100%. It's fine. And, like, you watch the X-Files now, and you're like, if someone did, like, Mulder falls into a coma and a Native American man revives him, now that wouldn't work. But I'm okay with it because it's the 90s, right?

Yeah, exactly. But also, is that a perfect example of a show that needed the churn and the pressure? of being... 22 episodes of season. Yeah, and needing to like spread out the work and bring in other voices. And knock it up your own ass and think about it too much. That's why 22 episodes is how TV should be.

Yeah. Because then you have to make 10 random episodes about bullshit. Right. Which rocks. I asked for... No one will let me take a meeting on the Buffy reboot, but I've been asking, obviously.

And the thing I keep saying when I ask is, you have to do 22 episodes. and six of them need to be unwatchable. Yeah. Right, right. There should be six that are canonically skippable, but good, you know, in their bad way. Six that are just about like some bullshit. Like they pick up a toy and they're like, oh, it's a haunted toy.

Buffy's got like a new cousin that you've never heard about it anymore. This is my problem is that now people go like, I'm going to take four years to make 10 or eight episodes of a season with complete intentionality and control. and you watch it and you're like, still six episodes are bad. It's still, it's always going to be six bad episodes. And it's better that you have a 22 episode season. And those six episodes are at least kind of like... Oh my God, a 22 episodes. I mean, I've been thinking about this because I'm working on TV and like a 22 episode season.

Also, like the holiday episode of Dead Art. Absolutely. Well, yes. Sweepsweek is gone. Where does Sweep's sweet. Like, sweet secret is like, everyone wants to fuck each other for three weeks. on the show and then and then all the repression gets stuffed right back in the bottle, you know, like we don't

do it again for a while. It is a crazy thing to consider that even the biggest TV shows used to be able to go like for one week only, Bruce Willis and the ratings would spike up by 10 million people. It didn't matter if everyone else had like, I haven't watched that in two years. They're like, well, I got to see the Bruce

episode. I got to see the episode where it's all dream sequences or whatever. The third rock 3D episode after the Super Bowl or whatever. Yeah. I mean, I'll be episodes after the Super Bowl. Another thing that's gone. I know they still exist, but like I want to see

House watch the Super Bowl, right? Like, you know, or like Terrell Owens appears, whatever, whatever dumb shit they would do to acknowledge. The calculation of, even if this episode isn't in conversation with the Super Bowl, it has to be the biggest episode we need a little something extra. It needs to be worthy of the post-super Bowl slot. TV used to be so good.

Jane, the TV show that you were doing is based on a very specific fixed work, and when we have talked about for years, because so many Blank Check filmmakers have, like, flirted with adapting it. And it's a thing that... Like Fincher. We are constantly telling Ben he needs to read,

and when it was announced that you are adapting Charles Burns' black hole, Ben was like, fuck, it's finally time. Did you read it? Not yet. But I'm going to do it. He's saying he's going to do it. I'm going to really in the comics late.

I will make a promise that within a month, when this episode is really self-readed. You'll devour it. Once you start it. Yeah. I love those Charles Burns Tintin things. You ever read those? No. X down. Really good. You know what's great, too, I'll say

is Panfleut. Yeah, let's circle back to Pan flute. It's just good. And maybe let's play it again. Sure. Slower. This is your thing. Jane, this is your jam? No, it doesn't. Not low enough? Yeah, there it is. There it is.

There it is. The slightly, yeah, yeah, octave down. David, you love like spas and massage. I do. I do. And this is what's playing, baby. I love this stuff. Because I got a massage for the first time in a very long time. Where did we go?

Somewhat recently, I'll tell you off my. Okay. And they were playing like the fucking techno version of this. Sometimes they'll do it. That's what I hate is these hip places feel like, oh, pan flute is lame. I can't play it. And I'm like, you're stressing me out right now. Yeah, it's time to return with a V.

Yeah. I will calm down. I think it has something to do with like, like, some of that, like, Lilith fair scorn. Sure. You know, like kind of spilled over into the pan flute. What else rules? Bring back with a fair. Bring back with a fair. Sarah McLaughlin. Panfleut, good. And you're good.

Now, is this just that I'm growing older and I miss my youth? Yeah, are we lame now? Probably. Almost definitely. So the girls disappear. Not to do the plot of Big Dicking Hanging Rock, which is a, you know, not a plotless film, but a loosely scripted film, I guess. They go up to the rock. Yeah, they've talked. Take a nap. A kind of mysterious, eerie nap.

And you kind of want to take a nap in the best way. They seem like they're on drugs. Yes. They're in some kind of odd trance. It's like euphoric, right? Like they're in a state. They've worked themselves into this like because they probably never get to do something like this and be like remotely independent.

But it also, it looks like a cult like ritual despite you knowing that there was not a kind of intentionality or planning. They all just kind of like lay down at the same time. Except one of them knew she was going to disappear. Right. That's Glasses Girl had the premonition, right? Is it Glasses Girl? And isn't she talking about a dream within a dream?

She's like quoting Edgar Allan Poe. I wrote one line that I really liked. What did they say? They said, uh... Joseph Gordon-Levitt was chasing me up the walls. Isn't it what she's saying? Uh, where is it? I have it here somewhere.

Uh, most human beings are without purpose, but they're performing some function unknown to them. Oh, fuck. Good shit. She rocks. That's like the pan flute of quotes. Yeah. And then they wake up.

The bugs crawl on them when they're sleeping. Yes, although not on the girls who don't get taken and then eventually return. But, yes. It was Miranda, I think, is the one who says that she is going to disappear. Yes, Miranda's kind of the main one. That's so Miranda. And she's a lawyer, right? And she's, you know, she's a little spikier than the other girls.

Evan Handler? Yes. No, that's Charlotte. I mean, Evan Handler plays Charlotte's husband if that's what you're referring to. Miranda's the one who marries the guy

who's like, I'm like that. Right, with glasses. And then in the new show, she's exploring her sexuality. She introduces to Tadias. There's Tad S. Really?

She explores her sexuality. She sure does. You never watched what's it called? And just like that? I haven't seen an episode. Some of many episodes did they have per season?

Not enough. 22. I'm going to make this case because people were like it's kind of demented and I'm like imagine if they got 22 imagine the shit they would have done if they had to do 20 10 episodes season no I think it's like America is waiting in baited breath to see like what the pit season 8 feels like yeah oh god that but the pit is right I mean that's why people are freaking out about the pit because you're it's you know it's fucking like it feels like old TV turn it out is some of the juice the taylor sheridan

shows too I keep reading these clickbait headlines sure you're like I haven't seen Belly Bob Thornton answers a door with a boner And I'm like, this sounds like when TV was good Well, that's also that even if those shows are 10 episodes each, She's writing all of them. So he's getting so tired He's found a way to get into the psychological headspace Of 22 episodes a season.

And no, not enough people, not enough main characters, but not lead characters dying in car crashes. Perfect. Oh my God. Or maybe not die. Episode 14. Episode ends with car acts, you know, just like a car like flipping over.

Yeah. And then it's to be continued. And then there's... Native Americans Bring Malder back. The greatest shit in the world was when... That happened to the Xbox, like, season two. It didn't take them long.

When TV was, like, produced on, like, a podcast schedule where you're like, they're filming the episode now I will see in a month. And you would read, like, Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Wattros got arrested for drunk driving. And then three weeks later, it's like, both of them are dead. Fuck, Anna Lucia bought it. Nothing was under wraps. All right, Piano Lucia.

She was a wild one. She was great. Did you watch Lost or were you not lost? Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah. I remember we once talked about Firefly. Oh, of course. You were activated by the Save Firefight thing long ago.

Yeah, that was my original trauma. Right. Was there a campaign to like send in something? Were people sending in something? It was kind of the original. There definitely was. What was the object? Brown coats, maybe.

Well, that's how Firefly fans identify themselves. Yes, they called themselves brown coats. They might have also sent some coats in. I just always like that thing where you'd be like, this network has threatened to cancel a show. And you're scared to rewatch Firefly in 2026. 20,000 people sent in plastic knives because it's their way of communicating to the president

of the network that they want their show back. Jane, I haven't watched it since, yeah, since college. I wonder, I truly wonder, because I really loved Firefly so much. And it was important to me. It like lifted me out of a deep depression. Did they have a word that they used instead of fuck? Yes, they did. What is it?

Because they had the whole, like, they would speak Chinese as well. Oh, totally. I can't remember what they would say. But what was, of course, Battlestarko-Octawc had frack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember the show, it was the CBS Apocalypse show, Jericho. It's a Ferris wheel. Right.

Right? Yes. There was some show that built a Ferris wheel outside the, like, office of whoever ran, like, CBS. And she was just like, fine, Jesus. And, like, another season. Yeah. What are you doing? That just felt like there's something that felt so innocent to that versus, like, the Snyder Colt is building bombs or whatever they're doing.

So the girls wake up and they walk. Anthrax in the mail. Yeah. The clock stop at noon. All this spooky shit have. And they walk in a trace, like, into a crevice, I guess. Yeah. And Edith just screams and that's it.

Well, I feel like the four girls break off before the rest falls asleep. And there's one who's like, no, no, we got to go back. Right. Yeah. And then they come back later and they're like, the girls are missing. Right. The rest of the class comes back late at night. I love that scene.

Yeah. With the, like, talking to the headmistress. Yeah, because you're like. If I was that headmistress, you're really in her shoes figuring out if something's gone wrong. Well, she just, like, launches immediately into, like, reprimanding and, like, laying down the law. And then the other adults have to come and be, like, you don't understand what just fucking happened. Right. But we're also, we're skipping over.

The rocks are talking, kind of. They're, like, shaking and making noises. There was, like, I think. They're seeing vapor kind of coming out. It's so mysterious. I was really just, like, so hypnotized by it. Yeah. And there's no way to define even what it really is.

They got a recording of an earthquake that they used for some of those weird primal noises. Like they would slow it down and fudge with it and stuff. But like that was that was what they're doing. But maybe what it is is it's it's the rock's tummy rumbling because he's so hungry. Oh, he's like, need girls. Again, the rock is not very big to my eyes when we see it in wide shots. It's kind of like an agro-crag style set of, you know, or, Thank you for acknowledging the importance of the acrocag.

And I do hope the acrocag was specifically inspired by Picnicac. And we should say that Mo will be on the next episode. Yeah, Mo is on the next episode. But the kids who lost at guts should have just been like disappeared into a void. Yeah. And it's like, they shall never return. But you're kind of like, where did these girls even find space to disappear? Right.

That's what, like, they just go behind a rock and like, you know. And then, of course, one of them is eventually found, like, in there. Yes, well, we'll get to that. Permission to make a bad joke. Yeah. Okay. Is the ex... Show a little excitement.

Yes, make your bad joke. Permission to make a great joke? Yeah, let's hear it. Okay. Is the reason they disappeared because it was the Rock's cheat date? And then he eats whatever he wants on his cheat day. Right. That, after like six days of grilled chicken breasts and shit and taramonic tequila.

He gets the three Victorian girls. He has like a stack of 15 pancakes and... Will the Rock even go to the Oscars? It's a nasty machine just got the one nom. It did for makeup. Which, excellent makeup. Don't you think he'll go to fucking plug live action Moana? Oh, I thought you were asking about hanging rock.

Well, hanging rock will go. That actually feels like a Conan. Like, I wish Conan could host in a picnic and hanging rock ear. Yeah. Like, he's like, and now the rock from Picnic and Hanging Rock. And then he just starts screaming. What was the last picnic at hanging rockier at the Oscars? It's been a little wild.

I've made this joke with the AR-15 from weapons. That should host you. Which is like, costume design is integral to, you know? Right. Floating like this. Well, like, Dune's Sandworm playing the piano was fun. It was great. But I do want, now that, like, Conan's returning for a second year, I want him to go full, like, character parade.

Well, he should. Preparation H. Raymond. Right. Like, do, like, do, like, 20 anthropomorphized objects from Oscar nominated films. No, but the pitch is, and he should steal this, the fucking opening video. is Amy Madigan makes him run like this through all of the other movies. That's good. Right? Like she just can't...

Because like Conan and Amy Madigan is cooking with gasoline. Like the two of them will be great together. Yeah. And he's just doing this. I mean... Running through Marty Supreme or whatever. It was their intent to bring back the... They were going to do it. It got full for a couple reasons that makes sense.

Yeah. But I'm hoping, I'm praying... This episode comes out the day after the Oscars. I hope Conan did a great job. I hope he went. through all the movies. I hope he physically ran through them all. How did Blue Moon do in those nominations? Two.

Best actor, best screenplay. Not bad. You like Blue Moon? I loved Blue Moon. Blue Moon rocks. I love that film. We need more bar movies. You know my favorite thing about Blue Moon?

That they had to take an approach to shooting around him being fake short. Yeah. In a ways that makes him feel like a Muppet. Yeah. That it feels like the visual strategy they employ for incorporating a Muppet. into a real world. I mean, when, what's his name, E.B. White,

when E.B. White shows up as the, like, you know, the celeb cameo. Yes. That's when you know. Like, he's the fucking Captain America of Blue Moon. Crazy that that movie. And he's like, and I'm thinking writing a book about a little mouse. It is insane.

That movie is so good that it does, like, six walk hard. Right. Here's little boy version of. And I don't ding it for any of them. No, it's awesome. Blue Moon is a blast. I was just, I was hooting and hollering and feeling crazy about, you know, Lauren's heart. Yeah.

Oh my God. I went through the arc of being like, yeah. No, this is good for what it is. It's fun. To by the end being like, is this most devastating thing I've ever seen. Does this rock and roll so large? L'Luador's good. Yeah.

I went to see it. I did my own double feature at the Little Movie Theater Upstate was playing both that and the, um... The Blackphone, too. No, Newvo, Vogue. Yeah. Because there were two double-fod. two different kind of Barbenheimers you could do,

you could do New Val Moon or you could do black and blue. Blue phone too. You could do the two hops. Oh, that's true. That's true

because I forgot about Ethan Hawks. Ethan Hogg not really in Black Phone 2 that much. I think he phoned that one in. Literally. Did you like New Val Hock?

Not really. Yeah. It was okay. You know what? I was also hungry and I knew I was doing the second one and so I did leave

halfway through to go get a chicken parm. Euro? Wait a second. That didn't put the movie over the line for you. I buried the lead on this. Let's talk about Black Phone 2 though, because

I feel like I you know, choose your battles in terms of like I'm a filmmaker. It's not. You don't want to talk shit. You don't want to talk too much shit about other filmmakers. But one film I feel comfortable talking shit about is Blackphone 2.

I have to say. Did you like Black Phone 1? I didn't, but I think that it's a whole. whole different ballgame because I and I sure yes I only saw black phone too because people were like but this one's kind of fun it's kind of like nightmare it like makes it nightmare and elm street he's dead so he's just like a weird monster felt like a pretty complete statement yeah and I was puzzled by them attempting to make a second one and then I saw the trailer and I'm like if you're

using this as a way to back door the new black door a new kind of like umhousy like yeah you know whatever like black phone takes in a hat there's a bad guy right you know right The phone goes to hell. Like, whatever. But I would say the grabber. The grab her. Try harder. He grabbed.

Absolutely. Try harder. He grabbed people. I understand that was his name in the first one. But if he's going to become supernatural, he's got a rebrand. Yeah. Yeah. So to what?

Phony. Freddie Graver. Yeah. He. Grabby Kruger. Full spoilers ahead for Blackphone, too. Warning. No one dies.

Good. He kills not a single victim. Good. Okay. Everyone survives. Right. everyone is Christian. Good.

The Christian stuff in that movie is amazing. It's so, did you guys, neither of you guys saw Blackphone too? You saw it, didn't see it. No, right.

I'm speaking into the point here. I heard, I heard about this. I think it's good because I, for too long, these horror films have presented lead characters

with abominable behavior and actions that I don't condone and these filmmakers are presenting it like they're heroes. I watch these Jason movies. I'm supposed to be rooting for this guy. He's killing people. I like to hear.

that the grabber is is obeying the law. But there's this kind of like the attitude that the movie takes is that being a Christian is sexy. What? Yeah. Like in a good way? Yeah, that like there's like one character who's like, and I believe in God and then someone else is like,

that's sexy. It's really, this would have been better if you guys had seen it, but is the grabber Jewish? Like what is the framework here? The grabber is basically, Blackphone, it said like a camp, right? Yeah. There's some element of that.

They get them to a camp somehow. And guess what is lurking at this camp? Grabber? A phone. A pay phone. Oh, sure. And guess who's calling on that pay phone? Grabber!

Yeah. Okay, good. I got it that time. And also the grabbers victims again. That's because it's like... Like they're just repeating the trope of the black phone. It's like, oh, the classic thing that happens with the grabber is that the dead... They talk to you.

Yeah. The victims help you. you and pump you up. Right. And when they, and when they pick up the phone is Ethan Hawk like, they offered me 10% of first dollar gross

and I didn't even have to come to sit. This really worked out with Sinister and the Purge. He did one day on set of Blackphone too. That's what I heard. And he is graven on the storm. Also, like, honestly, like, do not bemoan

Ethan Hawk pulling that off. Nice work if you can grab it. He's got one of those like, you know, like the grabby kind of hand things. Are you fucking kidding me? No, I wish. Like one of the toys? Yeah, he's got a couple of those toys. You know, extender.

You're grabbing this sound excellent. Most of the movie takes place on like a CGI frozen lake. I will not be tricked into watching this movie as I was tricked into watching the first black phone by some people being like, that's kind of interesting. And I watched it. I was like, no thank you. But it has the same, like, pretension of seriousness. That's what I find is often true with Scott Terrickson movies.

It's about trauma. Yeah. The black phone is about trauma. I recently watched his Day the Earth should still remake. I don't know why I did that. It's not very good. He's made a couple movies I like. Name them.

Doctor, Doctor. Give me the news. I like Sinister. I think Sinister is, like, pretty effective. Like, I don't think it's, like, some masterpiece. I don't know that I've seen some. I never saw Sinister

Is like Actually gnarly Content projector Yeah Fucked up Home movies It seems like There's something

Fundamently At odds in the Blackphone one Thing that Where it's like It wants to be like This guy is like Actually just like

A pedophile And we're just gonna like linger in his like Absolute Grotesque shit And also like We don't like that We want you to know

That the grabbers no good Yeah I think the grabber actually should be arrested and maybe like taken to court for some of his crimes. Maybe the justice system needs to have a say on the grabber. The grabber meets Lady Gaga in prison. Someone's got to save the grabber. Yeah, I guess that's kind of it. I mean, I sort of enjoy Dr. Strange, but like that, you know, the Marvel movies are always a grab bag of who really.

Grabber bag. Yeah. That's about it because I didn't like Exorcism of Emily Rose, which is sort of his breakout. No, never saw that one. Deliver Us from Evil? That's a movie he made. Never saw that. that one. No, I haven't seen that one. Yeah. That's an F-Cinima score, I think.

Mm-hmm. I'm trying to figure out what movies to play at my birthday party, and I was Googling best comedies, and I came across a letterbox list that he... The Derrickson made? A Scott Derrickson letterbox list of the 100 best comedies of all time. And you're going to do those for your one thing? Chronological. It was a good list, you know. He seems to have perfectly good list. Yeah, it was a good list. Do you remember his number one? It was chronological. I don't think that was number one. Okay, fair enough. It was more like 100 years, 100 last. Workers exiting the factory.

I was just, I was looking for, for inspiration. Mm-hmm. You know, do you do a theme for your birthday? You know, I did last year. What did you do last year? Well, actually, this year I was like, I'm thinking I might do VR as a theme, and my best friend was like, wasn't that last year's theme?

Mm-hmm. Like lawnmower man. And then I was like, no, last year's theme was time travel. And then my best friend was like, didn't you show strange days last year? Great movie. There's no time travel in that movie. No.

No. There is VR. I don't think I'm going to do a theme this year. Fair enough. I just, I want to show Pee Wee's Big Adventure. I mean, you cannot go wrong. I like the Pee We and Picnic now get to sit next to each other in the criteria in closet.

Oh, sure, alphabetically. Yeah, close to. Absolutely. Yeah. Performance in between. The P's, man. That's where it's a half. Perfumed nightmare.

Yeah. David. Yes. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. We're both stroking our chins. Okay.

And narrowing our eyes and kind of staring off into the middle distance. Do you know why? I don't. Because we're trying to thoughtfully build a wardrobe. Oh, and we don't mean a piece of furniture. Put that hammer and nail down. We're talking about what goes inside the wardrobe. And I'm not talking about a portal narnia either.

I'm talking about the clothes. That's right. You know, you want premium fabrics and you want considered design. You want every... It's not pieces that mix well and last, obviously. That's true. And they should be everyday essentials that feel effortless to wear. Yeah.

And dependable. Even as the seasons change as they are doing currently in New York. They should be items that you love so much that you would be crestfallen should some snow from Narnia creep in. Oh, yeah. Mr. Tumnus shows up offering you Turkish delight. I know the queen does that. He's like, can I borrow pants? And you're like, what's that going to do to the pants?

Right. You have like horse feet. We just have different leg shapes. Okay, look, they've got lightweight cashmere sweaters. I've got a couple of those. They got short sleep Mongolian cashmere polos. I think I might need to get some of those. Linen bottoms, shorts, t's, and 100% Pima, cotton.

I won't settle for 99. European jersey linen. All kinds of versatile pieces that make a wardrobe work season to season. We're talking about quins. They work directly with factories. They cut out the middleman, so you're not paying for brand markup or fancy retail. Stores, you're just playing for quality clothing. That's all it.

It's just quality clothing. Cashmere is 100% Mongolian. That's the luxury stuff, okay? Yeah. The Pima Continent's long staple. It stays soft. It doesn't pill. That European jersey linen breathable and lightweight, okay?

Mm-hmm. It's rated between 4.5 and 5 stars by thousands of people wearing it every day. I was worried there might be a 4.4 in there somewhere. Terrible. They only partner with factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. So I've got all kinds of quince stuff. As I point out all the time, I also, my bed sheets. Yes.

Okay? Yeah. My comforter, quince. And they're hitting? Yeah. You're best. I love being in bed. Fallen asleep well. Right now.

Go to quince.com slash check for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to build your wardrobe and love it and you will. Now available in Canada 2. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to QINCE.com slash check for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash check. What do we discuss? Well, the girls are gone and this has been wrecked with it.

But I'm like, what are the other things? Here's some things in this movie. There are these late movie revelations that I kind of did a double take on. When we find out that now we're getting really deep into the lore, but that Sarah, who's essentially the main character. So Sarah is sort of the main character, the girl who doesn't get to go on the trip. Right. Is she the sister of that other guy? Yes.

why how that's uh one of the uh i will say the deleted scenes in theatrical cut maybe explain that no no i watch them they they're more in depth on that yeah and i think that feels more elusive in the director's cut where you're like why is this kind of just nodded at without really being five minutes left in the movie and all of a sudden i'm finding out that those two characters who never interacted or your brother and sister yeah there's like earlier scenes in the theatrical cut that are not bad, but I understand him just being like, you know what, this is not where the action is. Right.

But they basically just got separated when the, because she was at the orphanage and then I guess somehow ended up at the school and they lost touch. And then it turns out that she, her tuition hasn't been paid at a certain point. Right, like some benefactor. Whatever guardian. Right. But it's a reflection of like, if you are not born into,

class and wealth in this kind of society, right? Yeah. Like, they're two pathways. They can put a man to work, and they can try to, like, finish a young woman to be married off to someone rich. Right. And so she's sort of sent into this, like, coddled training ground to try to make her a proper lady of value.

Whereas he is sent to work for some well-off family. Yeah. But befriends their son. Yes. Whose son? The rich family that... That other boy. Bernie works for that other boy

and they together in the woods when they witness the girls walking to the top of the mountain. And then, right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, make this effort to try to, if not, rescue them,

at least try to follow up and understand what happened. Did this come after the go-between the low-sea film? Incredible movie. Thank you for. shouting it out. That film came out in 1971. Yeah. I feel like there's some go-between

leading into this one. A movie that my father's favorite movie of all time. It was the go-between. Oh, sensitive man. No, Saturday night and Sunday mornings was his... No, that's the movie that my dad was like, that movie is about my life when I was at age. Right, the way my father reacted to Marty Supreme. That's you, that's the kid at the end. That's the way my father reacted to Blackphone, too. I just wonder why your name was Jane Grabbertson,

and hyphenated. But Go Between, Todd Haynes used the score from Go Between for May December. Of course. Just used it. And when I brought it up to him, he was like, yeah, rocks, right? Doesn't that movie rock? It does rock. Also, that book is incredible.

The book is incredible. I read it a few years back. It is incredible. But, so, right. So you have Michael, who's the English boy, the rich boy, who is just, like, haunted. by that, I guess haunted by that he can't fix it. Right? Is that the simplest way to put it?

He has these vivid dreams of Miranda where she's sort of like a bird, right? Or swan... But it feels like he's also just like, I was there. I was watching them. He was the last... They were the last two people to see them. And I like let them disappear. Am I wrong to say that like it feels like the film...

There's something like a little rapy with those two. There's something at least like creepily voyeuristic about what they're doing. They're like, look, a bunch of girl. Like, they also just kind of appear in front of them. The movie is playing off the energy of something significantly worse and more inexplicable happening before anything bad is able to happen from their actions. Like, if I was writing the miniseries, those boys would be suspect. Sure, right. And it's quiet in the movie, but it is, you know, it's not hard to read that in.

And then instead, they become almost obsessed with figuring it out. They almost feel a little emasculated by the fact that it's not a thing they can't solve. They can't be like Prince Charming and save the princesses. But I also think part of it is the inexplicable nature of it is breaking their brains. To witness something that they cannot even get their heads around. But his buddy is Bertie, Albert, right? Who's like Australian. Albert's the one who finds Irma, the one who doesn't disappear.

but doesn't know what happened. Yes. And, like, her feet are untouched. Right. So it's like it's not even, it's like she does seem to have maybe been suspended and returned. Does he go pass out, ends up with the same bruises? And then when they find him, he has the swath of cloth in his hand. Totally.

No, it's Michael who does that. And then Albert goes to the rock after that happens. She finds Irma. She doesn't know what happened. And then Albert is the one who, yes, recounts the dream where, yes, it's sort of revealed that Sarah was his brother-sister. Yeah. I guess.

And that she, in this dream, essentially said, I've got to go. And then it's revealed that she, you know, threw herself off the building and crashed through the greenhouse. This is the end of the movie. Well, now you're, yeah, you're jumping all the way to get. I'm just telling you. Well, because, no, this whole, as we're saying, the whole other thing is that she's told Mrs. Applebee, Mrs. Apple, the head mistress, whatever.

Yeah. That they're behind on the payments. Right. And she's also doing the brass. tax of like the great tragedy in her eyes of three girls going missing is that's three fewer tuitions yeah sucks in the immediate beyond even the fact that now the reputation of the school they're surrounded with these horrible fucking vibes and the business is never going to recover from this yeah so yeah i don't think i want to send my kid to the hanging no school but so just as a way to immediately cut cost she's just like i'm setting them to looming rock

right yeah maybe black phone two school or whatever let's kick this first first of you. preloader to the curve. Yes. She's becoming more cruel and merciless in this. And she's, you know, expresses she had a terrible experience at the orphanage previously. But she, I don't know, but then, but the headmistress in the end, it's like she's like coping with something too. It almost feels like. Well, I think she had a connection to her colleague, who we haven't really mentioned, is also one of the people that disappears.

Totally. Yes. Yes. Oh, and there's some kind of like, maybe. be there, there's some sexual repression-y kind of stuff going on. It's very hard to read into some of this stuff, but it feels like it's there. I believe it's

her name. Because then there's also Jackie Weaver who is sleeping with that guy the sort of groundskeeper. Yeah, they kind of have like a Gossford Park upstairs. This is the go-betweeny thing. Right. Yeah, exactly. And you get the sense that the headmistress is kind of pissed off about that.

Yes. You guys are having sex? Yes. Yes. But it's... But this is all stuff that's happening in the movie where you are like, what am I to grab on here? Like, what's the plot? Like, what is the ongoing story here? The girls have already left the hanging rock.

Right. The girls are gone. And now I'm with everybody who's sort of grasping on for an explanation or a way to proceed. The detail of the teacher who disappeared. Sorry, again, I don't remember her name. Miss McCraugh.

Miss McCraw is witnessed by the girl who runs off that she is just in her underwear walking around. Weird. What's going on there? What happened was she hypnotized, possessed? Like, it's, I don't know. I think they were horned up.

I think that rock was horning him up. It's a hot day. It's a hot rock. It's a hot rock. It's true. We discover Irma. And there's this moment where Irma is brought to say goodbye to the girls. And they're all hanging there.

That's great scene. They're doing like a dance lesson because it's like those wooden boards that they're all holding onto that are suspended from strings, right? To like do their posture, right? I assume that's what that is. like their ballet moves. They do ballet stuff. And then they all just go feral and start

like screaming at it. Yeah. Because they're like, you did it. Like, it's your fault. They want, they are the American critics saying, Explain it, Solve the mystery. I think not to,

uh, simplify it. We can just be like we can't simplify it and we leave it to you. You're saying, we the podcast? Exactly. Now that we've said that, you can also go ahead and simplify it.

We all acknowledge that, yes, part of it is just kind of like... I don't claim to have the ultimate reading, but this is what I feel while watching this movie. We talked about it a bit in our True Grit episode in our Cohen series. But that like the ending in that film, which I find so powerful, is kind of like, this young girl is broken by this experience. Because after this going on this fucking adventure that like leaves her down an arm, but also has these like high highs and low lows, the notion of like, great. now go to finishing school and like make yourself a proper wife for someone to buy and like,

you know, funnel into this system is just a thing that she cannot wrap her head around anymore. And I think a lot of this movie is about, to me, in my view, a society that is not giving these women any outlet to ever like express any emotions or autonomy. So all these things of like, what are these like repressed, unspoken things going on beneath the surface? It's not that the movie isn't communicating them too. us. It is that these characters do not even see a pathway to being able to communicate them to each other or perhaps even admit them to themselves. And what is like motivating them to go to that

rock is like being horned up. But it's also this feeling of like Jesus Christ, are we just like stuck on this conveyor belt for the rest of our fucking lives? And I think it's part of what makes everyone so freaked out about them disappearing is to a certain degree. It's like, well, this is scary, what ominous kind of unknown thing is lurking around here, but also, other than that, what's our future? We're all going towards the exact same fucking thing. Don't like it. No. And like, you know, this girl gets told that she's going to get kicked out of the school. She immediately is like, well, I guess it's suicide. There's like no third option for these people. And not that the group of girls go to the rock with ideations of death to begin with.

But it's more just this feeling of like exploration of, is there anything else out there even for a moment before we have to return to like the straight line we're expected to walk on? Because the world of this movie is very small. And, you know, some of that you can say is like budget limitations. But I think much like, you know, Halloween gaining power from not being able to afford extras, there's something about how limited the scope is of the world this is contained within. The fact that, you know, we see the police coming in and trying to solve it, but the movie doesn't zoom out to, like, this becoming a national news story in a way that really, really broadens its aperture. You're stuck in this, like, very kind of claustrophobic existence the whole time.

And death is, like, kind of the only way out of it? Sure. I mean, that is the way out for Sue, and we learn it's the way out for Mrs. Zaffliard, right? Like, the rock comes for them all. She goes to the rock, climbs it, and dies, is what we're told, right? Like, her body was found. She friggin' jumps off.

Or she jumped off. Friken lost her dang mind. Can I give you my read on what I think happens? You're like the Australian cop at the front of scene, like chewing an apple. Lossed of that mind. I lost a damn mind. Yeah. I think, and this is just, you know, how I've always read the movie, they go inside the slit in the rock.

And Bill and Ted are just there with their phone booth. Totally. And they're like, come with us. We're going to go see Socrates. They bring them to San Demas in the 80s and they have a grand old time. And they're like, if you don't mind, we'll stay here. I mean, do Bill and Ted fuck? Each other?

They should. The medieval babes. What are you talking about? They're married. They have children. Yeah. One of those is played by Jack Haven. Yeah.

Cool. And Samara weaving. I saw that movie once in COVID. It's gone. I'm sorry. I remember having a totally fine time with it. I've been pushing to do it on Patreon. We had it on this.

the schedule for a moment. We did think about it. We did. We can bring it back. Yeah. I just love all three of those movies. Same. Yeah, they're great.

They're fun. Yeah, so good. The second one is so good. The bogus journey one. That movie distressed me as a child. Well, it's... Because it's weird. It's very scary.

Yeah. Yeah. You like Bogus Journey? It's the one with the devil. I don't think I've ever seen it. Oh, Jane. Cool. But it's cool.

I would have guessed that bogus journey was like one of the most influential films on your work. I've like seen parts of it on Comedy Central for sure. You clearly have gotten there without having seen it, but I would strongly recommend you see it. You know what else I haven't seen? What? Princess Bride. You know what?

That's one for me too. I've seen the Princess Bride like once maybe, but like it's one of those movies that's canonical for people that I am like, I don't have much of a relationship with that movie. The other big one for me that I think it might finally be time for, because I just had an idea yesterday for like a, like not a gender swap, like more of like a moral. swap they can take good and make it evil is forest gump well hey now i mean you're on to something that's a good good starting point right so your idea is to take forest gump and turn them into a good character instead yeah exactly yeah see what i did there bet i liked it i've never seen forest gum but i know i know the idea it's quite a film forest gump is fucking stupid and bad but also you know pretty watchable I've been on a Zemeca's kick

I watched He's made some amazing movies Who Framed Roger Rabbit I watched For the first time in a while What a movie What a picture The best Unbelievable

It's my favorite of his own I think I was actually The last time I was on here Maybe talking a lot about The Polar Express Because I had just watched it For the first time So we covered him years ago

We covered him in deepest darkest pandemic And And we we spent a lot of time thinking about the man But David My daughter loves the polar express David has been stuck in a hell of polar It's not a hell

It's a strange world I don't know how you feel like the Express I loved it I loved it So you know I watched it Before I had kids And I was like what a weird waxy movie And then I watched it with my daughter on TV

And I was like Yeah but at least she likes it or whatever Then I took her to see it in theaters The Nighthawk had it Some of it kind of rips You're also skipping over 80 additional time She made you watch it at home I've seen it a lot

That movie is like Whatever What do they call this? like thing that people say my movies are like where it's kind of like um like liminal you know yeah like that's a liminal movie it that polar express is a liminal movie i don't think your movies are although they're not liminal like polar express i'll tell you that polar express like you're like because to me liminal which of course is in the eye of the beholder but like it's like you're in the train car of the polar express and you're like i can imagine this going on forever i'm in hell right exactly

like i go to another train car it looks the same you know who it fitted in that movie is salad finger And now we're getting a liminal space movie this year. We're reading the back rooms. Yeah, oh, yeah, totally. Directed by like a 19-year-old, which I'm all four. I'm like, yes, let's have 19-year-olds make creepy pasta movies. And the train conductor's in that, right? Yeah, he's going to be there.

Yeah. He's going to be like, welcome to that baller and red. That little hot, hot, hot. I mean, it's something that my daughter has not clocked, and I keep waiting to see if she ever does, where I'm like, this movie is sinister. Yeah. Like, he's not nice. No. he's really weird and mean to them

He's quite mean Yeah and I know that's sort of the bit of like Oh he's kind of stern But like you know he's got a heart But you're like it doesn't Who I feel like reacts to those things Yeah but she likes the rules You know and there's a lot of rules in Polar Express

A tremendous amount of rules Right One of them of course being Feel free to put ice cubes inside your hot chocolate Oh no never never let it cool Number this film came out I'm doing the box of us He's skipping so far ahead

He was about to tell us number Number five. This film came out in Australia in 1979. Do we have any final thoughts on picnic at Hanging Rock? Well, I had to create the space to leave it over. Oh, should I just play pan flute there? Yeah, do that over the box. The film came out in Australia in 1975.

But then, you know, sort of slowly works its way around the world. It does make a lot of money in Australia. It doesn't come out in America. As far as I can tell, Griff, until 1979. What? February 2nd, 1970. The year of Alien. The year of, there you go.

Yeah, there we go. Number, so I'm finding that, I'm giving you the box office week for the second of February 1979, okay? Okay. Okay. Number one of the box office is a superhero film. It's been number one for like two months. It's a big movie.

It's called Superman. Do you cover it Superman, Jane? Who's that? Christopher Reeve. Who's that? He's kind of a Superman. Is that guy who played Atticus Finch? No.

He's a newspaper. I've actually never seen the original SuperRoevary. It's pretty good. I should watch it. Richard Donner. Yeah. 75% of it is the best shit on Earth. Is it Brando?

Yeah. Oh, I got to see it. Brando. Brando has been tightly woven into a cryptonian suit. Should I watch? And I haven't seen the new Superman, but I kind of wanted to. New Superman's fun. Yeah.

Maybe I should do them both back to back. Yeah. And skip everything in between. Yeah. You'd be fine if you did that. Absolutely. Number two of the box office is a comedy. A comedy.

An ensemble comedy? It's an ensemble comedy. It's an ensemble comedy. It's an ensemble anthology comedy. It's not Kentucky Fried movie, is it? No. Think... Airplane?

Worse than those two movies. Or think less cool than those movies. But is anthology? It's not like... Yeah, sort of. The groove tube? No. Less cool than Kentucky fried movies.

Too early for Amazon Women on the Moon. No, so you guys, again, you're thinking cool. It's really... No, it's not even lame. It's just like very mainstream comedy of the era. Yeah. One of the big comedy figures of this era. Oh, oh.

Is it the Neil Simon? It's a Neil Simon. It's the hotel one. Yes, he made multiples, but this is one of them. Yes. It won an academy one. He made multiple. There's multiple, like, yes.

Correct. Like, we're at a hotel and there's going to be like four mini stories about people at the hotel. Or rooms. This is California Suite, which Maddie Smith won her first or second. Second. Sure. Wild. She's good in it.

I've seen California Suite. Bill Cosby's in it. Great. and Richard Pryor. Well, yeah. I don't know how to... Yeah. Jane Fonda, Walter Matho,

Elaine May. Okay. Richard Pryor, Maggie Smith. Pretty fun. No, it's not. It's okay. It's like one of the four stories is pretty good.

The Maggie Smith one. One's okay. The Richard Pryor one. Like, it's like, and one of them is kind of bad. You know what I mean? It's like... It made like $3 billion dollars

adjusted for inflation. Made $42 million. Wow. It was a big hit. Number three of the box office is something I have never heard of. I have to look it up. Okay, that's exciting. Okay. I'm not going to tell you what it's called because you have to guess, of course. Okay, so it's, there was a book. Okay, I like it so far. A non-fiction

book. Okay. Twenty-eight million copies of it were sold. Okay. The secret. It is a treatment of what I want to call dispensational premillennialism comparing end-time prophecies in the Bible with current end-time prophecies, right? Of the time. Uh-huh. So it's like doing all that stuff. This book gets turned into a film narrated by Orson Wells. Fuck.

That's just him being like, the Old Testament, you know, like in talking about all this shit. I know this movie. You do? Yeah. Because it's like a bizarre curio. It is. It's not called, fuck. It's not called the final something, is it?

No. I'll tell you what it's called. Yeah. The late great planet Earth. Whoa. Okay, that's a different movie that I was thinking of. Okay.

Well, that's what it is. I just, when I watch like old Siskel and Ebert's, they will rail about how like once a year there's a movie like this. Yeah. And they were like the weird faith-based box office phenomenon of their time, which were like quote-unquote documentaries that stoked like end time spheres. Yeah. Wow.

There's the search for Noah's arc, which like a really big one. A couple years later They would also There would be movies that was just like We have a hot air balloon And we took some fucking pictures

At the ground from it And people didn't have like You know Other ways to see that In color That's an earlier more innocent time By the time you get to the 70s There's a documentary

That's like Did we film an interview with God? It costs you $2 to find out And people would rush out And they'd be like no And they're like Ha ha ha we got your money And they'd run for the hills

Number four of the box office This is an action comedy That was a gigantic In 1979, is it Silverstreet? No. It stars a guy who didn't make a lot of comedies. And in fact, we wanted to talk about him indirectly with Jane and I mean, this is a way to do it. Here we go.

It is one of the two Clyde the Arangetangetang movie. It is one of the two films in which Clint Eastwood acted alongside. You wanted to talk about Clint with me? No, we want to talk about Sully. This is we're building a bridge over here to Sully. Because we forgot to do it last time you're on. We got to do it before this episode ends. But what the film is called?

Okay. It's the first one. Have you seen either of the movies where Clint, which is kind of like mucks it up with an I haven't, but I know about them. It's actually insane that I haven't seen. A lot of my like movie knowledge comes from the critic. Sure. I feel like there are a couple bits on the critic about this.

Yeah. I just feel like one of my top five favorite movie stars of all time is a monkey. Totally. Like just monkey on camera. Did you see the news yesterday about Keenan and Kel meet Frankenstein? It is, I did. It's really. I got.

I just book this country's back on the right track. I hope they do them all. There had better be a tie-in orange soda that I can buy for that. There had better be like a long exposition to drops eight months later about how much they were at each other's throats. Do you know what I love about it most of all? They buried the hatchet within five days of shooting. They were not speaking. Those are their real names, right?

They have the rights to use their real names. Sure. That's right. It feels like this movie is not legally affiliated with the Nickelodeon series at all. That's right. So I'm really fascinating to see how... Well, they play themselves in a new way, right? Like, are there going to be, like, weird legal lines of, like... Maybe Kelmichael can love orange soda. But orange soda is owned by Nickelodeon. Well, I love orange soda. And I hope Kel does... He was kind of stupid? Was that, like...

Kel's just excitable and, like, was easily tricked. Yeah. And Keenan was the schemer. Kiener was always like, here's what we're... going to do. We're going to do all this crazy stuff. It's very honeymooners. You can only imagine what's going to happen when. Oh, my God. Maybe Frankenstein's monster, too. But also, I think the classic He better be a lordy. He's

just doing the exact same thing. The classic Kean and Kell thing is that Kell's always a little smarter than you think he is. Yeah, Kell has kind of like a sort of... Right, right. That's right at the end of the episode. And Keenan trips himself up with the scheme. Right, he overthinks. They should get a lordy and who's Maggie Gillian Hall's bride?

Yeah, they should get Jesse Buckley as the bride. What's the film call, Griff? Okay, so I always get the two titles are wrong. It's called Any Which Way You Can? That is the sequel. The original was called. Any Which Way But Loose? Every Which Way.

This is What I always mess. Oh my God. In which, yes, Clint Eastwood, a bare-knuckle brawler, roams the American West looking for a lost love, accompanied by his brother, manager Orville, who is played by Jeffrey Lewis and an orangutin called Clyde. It sounds like it's straight out of the Australian New Wave.

It does kind of does. Humongous movie. Directed by James Fargo, who's one of his guys. Was like maybe Clint Eastwood's biggest hit at the time? It made $105 million, which is a lot of money. Humongous. There were like 10 movies in history that it made $100 million at that point.

What did you want to say about Sully? Sorry? This is the Sully Space. This is your chance to talk to me. You used to run a Sully Tumblr, correct? Yeah. Are you Nardwar? Am I wrong about this?

You're correct about that. Thank you. What was it called? It's my Sully fan art. Because I told people you were doing Twin Peaks return finale episode and multiple friends of mine were like, you got to ask Jane about the Sully.

Wow. And then when the episode came out, several people on the Reddit said, I cannot believe they didn't bring up the Sully Tumblr. I'm happy to hear this because I felt like the Sully Tumblr never got it to do. do. This is your moment. Yeah. To reclaim it. I think it still exists.

Yeah, yeah. So basically here's what happened. This is pre-movie. This is, oh yeah. This was the real man, the real hero. Yeah, this was pre-transition. This was, um, I, it was two thousand six. No, the movie had had come out or was just coming out. Let me check the dates here. Um, I had just quit my day job. Movies 2016. I kind of had these like dark years between 2016. in 2019, 20 that were sort of like

am I trans? This is one of the main coping mechanisms. It was my silly fan art. Yeah, yeah. I think I saw something in it. I was trying,

I was trying to find my voice, that voice that people love so much now. And a lot of that was going into, the conceit was sort of like, you're kind of tearing pages out of moleskin. Yeah,

I was tearing a page out of Moleskin notebooks and I was doing little one panel comic strips where Sully is like, I think as we now know him to be like, just like a hero of our time. But then, yeah, I was interested in like the Sully backstory. Sending you guys an image from it. Thank you. You're welcome. Do you know that Dave and I like wholeheartedly?

There's a big Sully thing. We, we defend that movie really hard. I don't think I ever actually saw the movie. That was the other thing. Wow. I hadn't seen the movie. I mean, the idea of him is so powerful. Yeah.

Imagine a whole movie of that. No, I think that, and that was where the comics came from. My Sully fan art was sort of like, you don't have a man like Sully who's real very often. It's a great man and the mythology. I mean, that's the fucking, the drive songs about him. You're a real human being. No, and it, um. It's true.

It's, I feel like it was a different time to have a, you know, a fascination with Sully in 2016. I feel like now post the rehearsal season two. That's true. We were so fucking ahead of that curve.

You know what drove me crazy? People text and saying you gotta watch the rehearsal. You're going to love it. Why? Because someone else

stood up for Sully when we've been here doing the work for fucking years. And me as well. They tried to railroad us. 2016 or 17. The three of us

were doing the work. Yeah. Boots on the ground. I gave Sully a sidekick named Tully who is his. There's also

little Sully. Sully's dad gives him advice. Sully's dad is a character and his dad is kind of always like, if you ever have to land an airplane on, because they're a bird, you know, he's sort of, there's a lot of that. Yeah. Oh, he's constantly fighting birds.

Yeah. Do you folks know, since we've already like spoiled Blackphone 2. Yeah. Do you know the ending joke of Daddy's Home 2? Yes, we've talked about it on this podcast. Do you know what, Jane?

No, tell me. The first Daddy's Home. Obviously, it's like Will Ferrell. Don't set up the first Daddy's Zone. We have to go. Very quickly! No. Mark Wahlberg, Will Ferrell, stepdad versus birth dad

coming back into the picture. Oh, I got to watch this. And he's feeling emasculate. Sophia Coppola loves it. It's okay. Hold on because I actually didn't know what's the movie called? Daddy's home.

It's important to explain these things. Stepfather. Because it sounds a lot like stepbrothers. It's sort of that vibe. Yes. But I mean, not as surreal. Step brothers is a Nickelodeon family comedy. Right.

Yeah. So the review. At the end of the movie is that... They're actually father and son? Mark Wahlberg remarries. And she goes like, unfortunately, you are going to have to meet the father of my children, my ex-husband. And he shows up and it's John Cena. And it's like, oh, here's the guy who can emasculate Mark Wahlberg.

Now it gets passed down. Right. So in second movie... Is it in there? They're a blended family. Sena's in there. They're all getting along, but there's a little tension between them. But now the grandfather's come in.

And so the chain is Will Ferrell. Or Will Ferrell's dad is John Lithgow. Got it. Mark Wahlberg's dad is Mel Gibson. Oh, wow. And they save John Cena's dad for the end of the movie. And the reveal is that it is Captain Sully Sullenberger playing himself. That's good.

And that's good. It's the only man who could emasculate Mel Gibson. Right. I do like that. And I'm glad that Sully got a paycheck. Yeah. And probably like pretty good residuals. Yeah.

Yeah. Did you want to say anything about Wada before I move on to number five at the box office? Yeah, you also, you're fluent in Wado. I, yeah. When you first came in here for the last episode, you clocked the Wado Standy. There's a Wado. There's a big Wado Petsy Standy. And you said, oh, we got to talk about Wado and then we forgot to do it. Now we can write that wrong.

It's the moment. It actually, I have a friend, my oldest friend who is a big fan of the blank check podcast. So shout him out. That's crazy because that's the podcast you're on right now. Bob, what up, Bob? Okay. We grew up together and it was like, Hi, Bob.

Yeah. Yeah, we had this sense of humor, right? Like, or like a Wado, you know, you're looking for the things that don't quite add up in pop culture in the year 2000 or whatever. 99, when was? 99, yeah. And we were collecting those Pepsi cans. Absolutely. And I feel like it was like my brain was still small enough that it was such a big event, those prequel.

It was like, oh, this is going to be like this is, we're about to get our. our canon. Yes. Like we kids. Our parents got it. It was Luke. It was chewy. Right.

We're about to get our cannon. It's these guys. Well, and they were pushing Wado so hard, I think, because of him being a CGI, like, visual effects breakthrough. Yeah. And then you watch the movie and you're like. And he's a Jew. He is, in fact, a flying space true.

He's a bit of a shy luck. And he's like a very unsavory character in the film without having the coolness of a villain. There's also a slave owner. There's a slave owner. There's a slave owner in a gambling act. There's a good mad TV sketch. Do you remember that one?

Oh, about Wado? Yeah, where they go to like George Lucas's ranch and he's like showing them the new characters and it's just like here's like, like, Aunt Jamama, Mada, you know? Right. The Jarger discourse was so loud at the time. Yeah, Wado kind of got dried out. And the Nemoids almost got forgot. Right. And I said the Nemoids were second.

Right. And I think we all are like of the same broken brain where even in 1999 we were like, we were able to see that there is something about Wada. And the future, like, circled back around 10 to 15 years later. I feel like Wado also has, like, there's something like very Donkey Kong about Wado. Like Wado feels straight out of the, like, not the, not the Nintendo, the rare universe. I was going to say, Donkey Kong country, you're speaking my language right now. There's some banjo-kazooy energy to Wado.

Yeah. Yes. Right. I mean, thank you for. And let's, let's just, you know, put it in the parlance of these times. Wado is a scenery chewer. He is. What do you mean by that?

If you're in a scene with Waddo, you're going to get out acted. And let me... And he admits that to this day. Yeah, he does. He has said that. And then you find out who Sully's father is. Yeah. I mean, let me put it in the parlance of our day.

Wado is straight up aura farming. And I don't say this to glaze him. Oh, my God. But the man was absolutely serving. So weird. The Quigon is like, I'll break any rule. I'll train a kid. I'll gamble for his life, right?

I'll bring him, you know, because And then the kid's like, can I have my mom? And he's like, you know, things are done a certain way here, all right? I'm not going to just take your slave mom from Wado. Yeah, this giant ship's a little crowded. I won one slave in the bet. Does he Jedi mind trick Wado? Wado says that they don't work on him.

Mind tricks don't work on me. I'm a toy there, yeah, yeah. So he can't be. And of course, Wado, instead of flipping a coin, rolls a chance cube to produce a red or blue outcome. Part of the charm of Waddo is that like, I feel like the name Waddo, that

was the first draft. Yeah. I think we did a good job. Number five of the box office is a romantic drama about ice skating. What's it called? Well, it's not the cutting

edge. No. Famously, it stars Robbie Benson, who is best known as the voice of the beast on the video archives podcast in beauty and the beast they did that's right uh and recently was on severance who is the female lead of this movie uh her name is colin dehurst yeah okay sort of theater actor yeah mm-hmm this movie is called is it called the something no fuck i'll tell you what it's called it's called enchanted hearts no castles yeah there we go there you go okay so

that's uh the top five you've also got uh the further adventures of the wilderness family what the hell is that sounds good that's a jane-esque title yeah i've bet it into chat gpd you you should look into that IP see if anyone's got hold on it right now uh that is a sequel to a movie called adventures of the wilderness family perhaps unsurising uh i don't know looks like some kind of like you know um Little House on the Prairie adjacent shit.

You've got the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings which rocks and is insane. Yeah. Wait, he did Lord of the Rings too. I thought he just did The Hobbit. No. So the Hobbit was Rankin Bass. That thing is okay.

And then there's the insane Ralph Bakshi, what's, you know, where you trace over it? What's it called? Rosedooped Lord of the Rings. It is so weird and nightmarish. It's got all kinds of cool stuff. It unfortunately ends in the middle of the two towers. Yeah.

And then he didn't do Return of the King. And then there is a crappier Return of the King animated movie. Yeah. But that was all that ever existed until Peter Jackson. Number eight is the Sean Connery movie, The Great Train Robbery. Oh, sure. Number nine is a movie called Movie Movie. Yeah, that's a Stanley Donan's film.

Huh. It's sort of Stanley. It's two movies. It's Stanley Donan's grind house. I'm not kidding you. Dynamite Hands, a boxing movie. And Baxter's Beauty of 1933 is sort of Gold Digger's movie. It's basically him doing two.

different golden age pastiche mini movies. And there's a fake trailer in the middle. Yeah. I wasn't kidding. It's his Grindhouse. Wow. Movie movie movie is like, A, I think, an incredible title.

Yeah. And B, it is a fun concept. But it's also fascinating that any time anyone's tried to do this, it has not worked. The public has said, fuck you. And then number 10.

And they've been wrong every time. Every time. Yeah, Grindhouse rocked. Number 10 is across the Great Divide. What is that? It's a film. Western. Okay.

Robert Logan. whatever. It doesn't matter. I have to go see the Sam Ramey movie in the second. Oh, fine. That's a humble brag. Sure. You were saying I got to go this whole time. I thought you got to make pasta dinner for your family. It's why I could do a later pod today because I have a screening.

Well, well. I have to go to the Fortress of Doom, aka Disney headquarters. Whoa. You haven't been there? No. They should lay in. I haven't invited me. Let you mess around with some stuff.

They should let you develop a live action. Where's swato? Where do you? You keep him. Where's Wado is not a bad title. I'll tell you some Wado writes stuff off mic. But I feel like it's about time, Jane, that you attach yourself to some random live action Disney remake that never actually happened. Right.

Some IP play. That seems to work out well for my peers. Yeah. Yeah, it's perfect. Not nightmarish and annoying at all. It's like about as good mileage as everyone involved in that hanging rock case. It's one of those. A lot of people just kind of disappear.

Yeah. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being held. Thanks for having me. This is so fun. Very excited to see the new film, which will hopefully come out sometime in this calendar year. Yeah, this year. And you were working on Black Hole?

I'm in the whole coolest show. Which rocks? But yeah, that's what you're doing, right? Nothing else to plug? The book will be out in the fall. That's right. I knew you had another thing. It's like a 600, 700-page novel.

Hell yeah. Wait, you wrote Ankind? Yeah, I wrote Ankind. It starts Richard Brody. What's the book called? I'm sorry. The book is called Public Access Afterworld. Very cool.

I think it's good. It's a novel. It's a novel. It's it's going to be my dune. You know, this is my, this is my opus. Music to my ears. Nothing better. And, and. It's like pan flu music.

Yeah. Yeah, play it up again. My Sully fan art still. My Sully fan art still on Tumblr. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to see my true first, first project. And yeah, I saw the TV glow, obviously.

and we're all going to the world's fair. The best. Yeah. Honor and a privilege to have you. Seriously. Thank you for coming. To be here. Oh my God.

It's so fun. Music's really chilling me out. I'll see your ass tomorrow. Well, hey. Not to spoil for the listeners, but recording episodes tomorrow. We are, in fact. What are we doing tomorrow? They'll have come out like two months earlier.

We're doing mailbag and return to us. Oh, no. We moved them out back. We're doing a Carson Day, Paris. Yeah, which you'll have heard. Yes, last week. Great. Thank you.

for listening. Thank you, Jane, for being here again. Tune in next week for... For... Doop do, do, do, do, do, do... Is it Gallipoli next? The last wave. The last wave, of course.

Tune in next week for the last wave with our buddy, Ben David Grubinsky, returning to the show. Who also has a new movie coming out. And as always, I just gift to you the listenership the opportunity to listen

to some chill-ass pan flute music. music. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas, and our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help.

Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank CheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.