Blank Check with Griffin & David - Taking Woodstock with Alex Ross Perry

Episode Date: September 9, 2018

Writer and director Alex Ross Perry (Christopher Robin) returns to Blank Check to discuss 2009’s Taking Woodstock. But is this a comedy tho? Did this film win AARP’s Movies for Grownups Award for Best Grownup Love Story? Is the portrayal of an LSD experience accurate? Together they examine the career of Demetri Martin, a mysterious bucket of glitter, Sha Na Na and straight trippin’ boo. Plus, Griffin shares a Martin Scorsese Woodstock story and Alex brings the chocolate milk! This episode is sponsored by [ZipRecruiter](https://www.ziprecruiter.com/blank) and Abrams Books’ new release [The Cohen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together](https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/coen-brothers_9781419727405/) by Adam Nayman and Produced by White Little Lies. And look our for an upcoming screening of Alex Ross Perry’s new film, [Her Smell](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7942742/), starring Elisabeth Moss, Cara Delevingne and Dan Stevens!

a generation podcasted in his backyard That's a tagline for the movie. Fuck you. I don't care. The quotes are all bad. Wait, what's the word? A generation began in his backyard. Oh. I mean, I guess so.

I suspected you also might have favored a line which jumped out at me as something from the trailer, which is go see what the center of the universe looks like. That's what I was thinking of doing. Which is arguably the only halfway memorable line, only because it's in the trailer. I would agree with that. It's not listed on the IMDb quotes page, and I didn't want to paraphrase it. Is anything listed on the IMDb quotes page? Yeah, ready?

VW guy, like ants making thunder. That's the Paul Dano character. Of course, yes. Elliot finds his father pouring a jug into the freshly filled swimming pool Elliot dad that's bleach for the laundry Jake it

kills the germs what's the difference also trailer that line really disturbed me there's a lot of really freaked me out yeah can people swim in a pool that has bleach in it like

wouldn't that like poison them yes because the movie's kind of like what what are you going to do? My old Jewish dad in upstate New York pouring bleach in the pool again. Like, you know, just sort of treats it like, ah, ah. But that's what all these quotes are. They're like, Elliot, mom, dad, you're like superheroes. Sonia, no shdupping in the butches.

Butches, bushes. So. Elliot, where are my arms? What the fuck is this? Who's curating this? Do you know in Spain this was called Motel Woodstock? Isn't that weird? That's a better name for it.

Let's hope that after this, Go See What the Center of the Universe Looks Like finds its way onto the quotes page. Yeah. Someone, come on, like, you know, get your act together. Clean up the quotes page. Yeah. I mean, it's maybe the worst line in the movie, but it's also the only line that I remember because I wrote it down and I heard it six times in the trailer.

Right. It sort of sticks. It's like the only line that has a handle on it. Right. You know, whether or not it's good, it's like a mug. It's like at least like, you know, something someone would have in the office drinking their Joe out of. Hello, everybody.

This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. My name's Griffin. David Sims. Newman. I'm Griffin Newman. This is a podcast about filmographies. Directors who had massive success early on in their career were given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy, far-out

psychedelic projects they want, baby. Oh, boy. And sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce right into the center of the universe. Yeah, forget it. I was going to say far out or something. Aren't hippies funny?

Yeah. This is a miniseries on the films of Ungly. It is called Podback Mountcast. And what's that in the distance? Boing, boing, boing, boing. Oh, this is a bouncer? This is a bouncer, baby. It only costs 30 million.

I mean, it bounced. You are not wrong. Yeah. And this is like, my favorite thing is when people ask me what directors were getting ready to cover

and they're like, so what else did he do besides the big ones and I run through stuff? There's always the like, oh shit, I forgot he directed that. And that's my bread and butter. Right.

Well, no, I was going to say there's another one. Alex pokes his head in. Right. Insomnia is like an oh shit, I forgot he directed that. I think this falls into, wait, that movie happened? Ang Lee made a Woodstock movie? Yeah, but it's like not about the concert. It's about like the planning of the real estate.

And it's not about that either but that is my and it stars dimitri martin that movie was made like that's always the response i get is like that happened that's the episode that's why i claimed this nine months ago you you did you really threw your marker and then even like in one of the other episodes you guys were someone was like oh yeah you guys are taking what are you gonna do about that episode and you were like oh that's the one i haven't seen that That's where I want to come in. The one I haven't seen, the one I haven't seen since it came out, the one I forget about,

the one that was a job for hire. I like to, you know, anything that's like, I'd like to be in there for the weirdest, most anomalous episode of like every third, every third series. Well look, you're a fan favorite, you're a friend at this point and you have said that you like to, when you finish recording an episode, get another episode on the box.

You don't want to leave the studio until you've staked your claim to a future episode. You're like me with my friends where when we're saying goodbye to each other at the end of hanging out. It's like next Tuesday, right? We're going to hang out again like two weeks from now? Okay, great. Like a dentist or a haircut. I want to know. You operate on a dentist system.

So yeah, I like to make, I'll make my next appointment before I leave. I was remembering that when we did the last one, Last Jedi wasn't out yet. That was like the thing. That's crazy. You had seen it.

It was so it was right in that week. I think it was the day before it came out. Can I just weird axe grind corner over here? Our guest today is Alex Ross Perry,

by the way. You're going to take me down? You're coming to me? No, no, no, no, no. It's a very different thing. You can't come to me. You got a herniated disc. I can't come with me i'd run away breaking news i'm broken yeah breaking news i have been broken breaking griff yeah breaking griff coming

to amc uh not not thanks for repeating my joke i was giving it an encore. I was echoing it. Yeah, what's up? I wasn't trying to steal it. No, I know. What's up? Axe to Grind Corner. I did like the run of podcasts like leading up to the second half of season one of Tick. Oh, yeah.

You mean the time you didn't plug this show on Comedy Bang Bang? Maybe. And there was one guy. That was so upsetting for me that I literally had to like turn my phone off and go lie down for a while. Ben is shaking his head. Anyway, go on. Have I explained what happened?

No, you have. It's fine. You guys are here to plug the tick, of course. And then I didn't, I couldn't figure out how to fit in because he just like made it our plug. Yeah.

Imagine if you were wearing the shirt that Ben's wearing while he's out. I know. It would have really helped. Ben's wearing a beautiful blank check t-shirt that hopefully will be available for sale at the time you listen to this episode.

If it isn't, oh no. If there isn't, file a lawsuit. When I did that run of podcasts, I did Hollywood Handbook, I did a couple others, I'm forgetting. There was seemingly one guy who like on the subreddits, on the subreddits,

on multiple subreddits, on the message boards, because I of course wanted to see how I did on those shows because I was a big fan. I wanted to see how our episodes were being received. One guy who kept on attacking me in every one of these threads saying like he was unbearable. He kept on trying to do all the bits they do on the show. It's clear he's a listener.

It was so frustrating. It was like if they do on the show it's clear he's a listener it was so frustrating it was like if i was on the show and the guy's complaint was that i knew all the bits too well sure and was playing along with that right right and he was like it pissed me off like listening to myself on the show it's like how much do you hate yourself well let's imagine that a lot this this could be a good jumping on point for a lot of new this episode I think a lot of new people might come

this is a huge when they hear you're finally doing the taking Woodstock episode yeah stockies you're talking about stockies yeah and because like it's a tough one

because like what's left to say about this movie so people are going to be very like yeah they're really going to be looking for that new insight

on something that I feel like is pretty well covered culturally at this point. Alex, you've been teaching at NYU. Is it irritating how many students come in with papers on taking Woodstock? Is it like the new Fight Club now where it's just like, we get it, you're basic. We all know that this is an important cultural landmark movie.

It's a very good question. I have no idea what's going on bits i have this i have this question why isn't it called taking bethel but i'll just ask that whenever this is done i also why is it called taking woodstock i don't know something i was trying to look up i swear and i found no proof of this but when this movie was announced it had a different title well that's that possible i remember when it was announced could you find proof of it but it was called like finding or it was like, it was some other word other than taking.

And I, I, for the life of me could not find this. And I think I might've imagined it. You may have imagined it. I remember when it was announced that I thought it was called talking Woodstock. Now that's what this is called.

That's what this is. By the way, the first episode of talking Woodstock. And that didn't sound good either, but I was like- It's the first episode of Talkin' Taken. It sort of- It kind of just sounded like a Harry Nielsen song.

We're talkin' Woodstock. Like, okay. And then I found out it was called Taking Woodstock. Yeah. And I was like, oh, so did they like- Is it someone who like pulled some kind of a scheme about Wood- No. Or is it like Muppets Take Manhattan where it's like,

these people really took Woodstock by storm. And none of it makes any fucking sense. 11 years later, you watched it and found out it actually is just talking Woodstock. Yeah. Right. Yeah, they talk around it a lot.

Alex, I have a big question for you. At the day we're recording this, this will be coming out, I guess, about a month to six weeks from now. Pretty tight by most standards, I think. Yeah. In the grand scheme of things, yes.

Recent history. It'll come out during the same season. Correct. The same calendar year. The day we're recording this is the day of the wide release of a film that you wrote. That's true. It's very weird. Oh, they were recording it.

Yes. Yes, the day we're recording it. My rave went up on The Atlantic this morning. Hey. Let's just take a minute and read it. Okay. No, let's true. It's very weird. Oh, they were recording it. Yes. Yes, they were recording it. My rave went up on The Atlantic this morning. Hey. Let's just take a minute and read it. Okay. No, let's not. And by the way.

It's pretty well written. By the way, Alex, very, very kind of you to refer David over to your Disney shows, who of course gave David the payola because Disney loves paying critics. Yeah. Yeah. They were so great. If there was anybody I knew that wanted some of that payout who hadn't already gotten it. Give me that sweet honey.

Well, because all these poems are greased by Disney, baby. That's the only reason Disney gets good reviews. Not as many on this one. It seems like they may have cut down their critic bribing for this movie based on the embargo lifting last night. I will say. They only had enough to bribe about apparently like 65% of critics. I don't want to talk too much inside baseball but it was a thing where I've been very excited

for this movie that you worked on. Christopher Robin is the movie. And then Disney did the thing. We were like, where's the invite for this? And then, yeah,

the embargo was Thursday night which is usually a sign that a studio is not very like confident about their movie. Yeah,

I was pretty confused by that. I mean, I didn't learn that until I asked when the reviews were coming out. But the other weird thing is that Disney also more and more now has been doing that just because they don't want the movies getting out.

They do that with Avengers shit. They do that with their crazy hyper tentpoles. I saw that and was just like, so are they just applying that to all films now? I have no idea. I don't know. All I'll say is that I saw it, and I had a great time,

and I wrote a great review. I enjoyed casting that check. I'm glad it's out. By this time, it will have been out for a while. Sure. People maybe have seen it. This is my big question for you.

You are a fellow box office obsessive. Love it. It's a thing that you and I talk about a lot is how much we sort of love the math of box office, right? I am too. I'm saying fellow with us obsessive. Love it. It's a thing that you and I talk about a lot is how much we sort of love the math of box office, right? I am too. I'm saying fellow with us. Okay. David.

He speaks for everybody. I speak for everyone. We, the royal we, all around this table, especially Ben. Ben looks nervous that he might get drawn into this somehow. Our box office hounds. Are you right now getting like updates from Disney

about how it's performing like hour by hour? Definitely not. You box office hounds. Are you right now getting like updates from Disney about how it's performing like hour by hour? Definitely not. You're not getting that. You know all those jokes and like hackney things about how unimportant

writers are in Hollywood? You're about to lay a truth bomb. I learned two things. One, they're not funny. Sure.

And two, they're not jokes. They're just facts. Is that why they're not funny? Well, I learned two things. One, they're not funny. Sure. And two, they're not jokes. They're just facts. Is that why they're not funny? Well, I learned that first. It's the opposite of truth and comedy. I'm sure if I were to be bugging people, I could be getting those updates, but I'd rather just learn it in real time like everyone else. Well, I'll tell you that it got 1.5 million in Thursday night previews,

which is similar to what Wrinkle in Time got. Wrinkle in Time opened to 33 million, but I'm pretty sure your movie did not cost what Wrinkle in time uh i don't know um fair enough probably not it certainly doesn't seem like it i feel like it's not a thursday night kind of movie right right that's also true i think that's a good number for for that film yeah that's actually a good point how many people went to see christopher robin thursday night well my dad did fair enough i i would have been were I not broken as a man, I certainly would be

a 7 p.m. Thursday night Chris Robin guy. Yeah, my dad was one of them. David Lowery, who is now a fan of the show because of my recommendation, saw it last night. Maybe future guests.

Winky, winky, winky, winky. I know those are the two people I know who saw it last night. So the other 1.69999 million I can't speak to I just remember I have this very distinct memory of when draft day premiered the premiere was on

like a Monday and then suddenly my schedule in LA was filled up with all these general meetings where they were like you're popping in this movie we want to meet with you people were just like handing me scripts and going like you're popping baby we We'd love to get you involved with stuff.

Were you only talking to Rob Corddry's character in Ballers? Is that everyone in LA? You're popping! You're joking but it is everyone. It is. Also I went to the Pop Secret Factory. But they were just telling me I was popping and handing me all these scripts and everything. And then Friday my last general meeting

was at Lionsgate, who were releasing Draft Day, and that was the day the movie was coming out. And I went in for like a 10 o'clock appointment, and they were like, hey, we're so happy with your work in the film. We're really excited about it. Box office isn't looking great, but we think it's going to rally. We don't think it's a Friday morning movie.

And it was just like so distinct that like I had walked in, and they had started getting the first, first numbers on Friday morning. Because it there's an la so they had like the new york 11 a.m empty theater numbers right and then i like walked out of there and was like well let me send like the follow-up emails to all the general meeting people and suddenly none of them responded oh wow uh you were you were out i was out did you know that draft day made less than one million dollars outside of america yeah i do know that don't Day made less than $1 million outside of America? Yeah, I do know that. Don't rub it on me.

I mean, it's not really surprising. It's a very American movie. Do you know that outside of America, the poster was just my face? Which I told them not to do. Huge mistake. You got a character poster that was actually the only poster. They didn't make the other one? No, it was just me.

And they didn't even put my name on it. They just wrote, some Jew, Draft Day. What was the character quote on your character poster? Because you know how character posters have that. Including the Christopher Robin character posters. It was, excuse me, sir? Yeah, I wouldn't see that movie. Weirdly, Garner is actually on the European posters with Costner.

Yeah, because I think they had to sell it as more of a romance and less of... I remember that photo shoot. I was there watching in the wings. I was watching the photo shoot going like, and they don't want me in there, right? I'm just double checking they don't want me in the photo. To your point,

which I feel like is probably the end of this train of thought, I had intended to do that this week and stay in Los Angeles where I was for the premiere and I was too sad and I didn't feel like going at all and I almost didn't

and I left immediately because I just didn't feel like being out there and doing what you just described. Came right here into the studio. I came home very, very late and then woke up the next day, had a little bit of a day, watched Taking Woodstock

and now I'm here. And I'm glad that this was planned so that I could, because previously I would have watched it like, you know, the other time you suggested I would have had to have watched it before I left

and I would have forgotten everything about it by now. So I'm glad that this movie has been watched within the last 24 hours. I just think that drop is so the most depressing slap in the face thing when the industry is just like, oh we literally don't care about you anymore.

And it's such a dime turn. And especially when you barely have the currency to begin with. Well I'll let you know this is what you're saying this is what I'll feel like this is not going to happen to you Alex we'll see I'll call I'll like phone in like a little five minute addendum in the next five weeks would you want to drop it in right here

well maybe we'll see well Ben reminded me to call in with this update that I promised when we recorded a month ago. And the truth is that nothing really has changed as we predicted. The movie has done fairly well as of this calling. It's made about $90 million, but nothing has changed.

I heard from some people from odd reaches of life who saw it, which was nice, but as we predicted in the previous bit of conversation you heard, nothing really changed for me yet. May still, but Griffin was right, it doesn't

really work out that way. Thanks for reminding me to do this, Ben, and enjoy the rest of the episode. All right, wow, well. There was the pause for it. There was the pause. I hope it, you know, it's just a cool thing to be released. Yeah.

Were you happy with the phrases on the character posters? I don't remember what they are. I think, oh, bother, probably. I'll go ahead and say probably. I remember them not being very punny, which is good. It's not a punny movie. No, but like a lot of times with animal movies, anything that's animal adjacent,

they'll just use the like fast and the furious. I'm seeing no phrases. Really? It's all image, you know? I feel like because each of the four. Here's Piglet, but it's all like negative space, which I actually kind of like the negative space poster because I think it draws your eye, usually.

I feel like at least for those four, each one has a catchphrase that would be on there anyway. So they don't have to think of some punny line. Right. They have long established bits, these guys. Who are your guys? Yeah. Eeyore is my guy.

Eeyore is pretty great. Eeyore got a lot of love at the at the press screening at least there was a lot of happiness was that the character you found easiest to write uh no it was Pooh really yeah by far are you Pooh like you know do you have I like I mean I aspire to be you are pants right now yeah just came in and got comfortable did you because you nailed the Englishness this is actual praise for me it's the highest praise because I was thinking about it when I was watching this movie and I was sort of like there aren't any English people involved in the

like create writing and directing of this movie David I have to remind you we have retired this bit you can't talk about this anymore sigh for crying out loud you asked us to retire the bit so I don't understand why you keep on trying to look up there.

We retired the bit, but I am still allowed to talk about my life. I would even say that you seem like you're more comfortable doing it now knowing that. Right. But he's done this twice now. But this would have been the ideal time to do that because you're immediately authenticating the Englishness of something. David, you are allowed to talk about your life. You're just not allowed to start the bit. You can't initiate the bit because we've retired.

Did you think a lot about the Englishness? Ben, get your cards out! They brought in a kind of English expert at some point to sort of check the P's and Q's of the geography and certain names.

No, i understand that yeah of course that's not what i mean i guess i more mean the vibe of like post-war stressed out english people uh no all right it was just in there you just felt organic i mean it's sort of i mean whatever i don't want to talk about christopher fine i want to talk about taking woodstock i know you do and i'm not trying to interview you I just was so happy my dad grew up post war England it was a stressed out time he used to talk to me about

excuse me talking about my father is not part of the bit you're allowed to talk about your father yeah who is English no no no it's not part of the bit the bit is me not him I got you you're really of the bit. The bit is me, not him. I got you.

You're really splitting the bit here. All right, all right. Much like a man from Taiwan making a movie about Woodstock. Thank you. I just kind of went with my gut. Right. That's good. Let's hope it pays off better than taking Woodstock.

Well, it paid off for Imelda Staunton. How many Oscars did she get for this? She got 15 mil plus plus 40 percent of first dollar i just need all the money your character has under the floor okay so this lady is loaded this is the one right after less caution yeah so 2009 me two years later right he's kind of running on like a big enough blank check that he gets like a second well and also my guess is that Hollywood was kind of like yeah, okay, you made the Asian movie. I mean, okay, but you want to make a Brokeback Mountain 2 or whatever?

Oh, it's a gay character in the forest? He's around lawns? I mean, this is a focus movie. Yes. So, I don't know. They had done the Brokeback. Right. I'm taking my headphones off. Who released, did they not release Less Caution? I don't know. I can't my headphones off. Who released, did they not release Less Caution? I don't know.

I can't remember. While you're looking that up, let me posit my theory dovetailing off of this. They did. They distributed it. Yeah, sure. I felt like watching this

that Brokeback Mountain must have been enough of a windfall. It was. Essentially, both Ang Lee and James Seamus got a blank check.

Ang Lee went home and made less caution. A two and a half hour long thriller or whatever. Sex thriller. Sex thriller. Sort of. And then James Seamus used his portion of the check to make this movie. I think that's a really good take. I think that's it. That landed for me very clearly watching this last night. I think that's a really good take.

This really does feel like Seamus' passion project. Yeah, you kind of feel like he maybe wishes he directed this. And I've also read a lot of interviews with him where when they go over the career and they ask him, like, what happened there? What was up with that? And he says, like, I think we just realized people didn't want to see an Ang Lee comedy.

Like, they got confused seeing Ang Lee's name on a comedy, which is a weird theory because there's no jokes in this movie. Right, that's the problem. It's that it's not a comedy. And like, James, you don't write comedies that often either. Right, but he would present it as if it was like people saw the trailer and were like, God, this looks so funny. And then the name Seamus and Ang Lee came up at the end and they went, well, never mind then.

Like the deterrent was who had made it rather than it not looking funny. I think he's also, he's kind of fascinated with like the 60s and counterculture, right? And like Jews and hippies interacting. I don't know. All that stuff. But, you know, I guess it also makes sense. We were talking about before this that Ang Lee like lives close by to there. Sure.

You know, but Brokeback was a big windfall. Like, I think we don't think about how well that movie performed, especially with the sort of notion of the glass ceiling on gay films

up until that point. Yeah, it did great. It did, like, great business. We talked about it on that episode. And that was only a couple years

after Crouching Tiger broke, like, every fucking record. right, right. So, he's in this state

now where like even though Hulk kind of bounced it is like I guess it can't predict which Ang Lee movies are going to do well which is how he achieves weird blank

check status is that it's like every once in a while one of this guy's movies breaks outside the box and super over performs and they aren't the ones that you can

predict. So I guess he just got to give him the check. I mean, that's like you mentioned Clint Eastwood earlier in terms of other... It's like the same thing. He can release three bad, unsuccessful movies in a row and any other movie of his people always be like, but that one...

We could have a Gran Torino on our hands or whatever. American Sniper or... Or it could be Jersey Boys. Right. Hey, Jersey Boys made money. Or it could be like Hereafter which like doesn't exist.

You know. Much like this movie. Yeah. Yeah. It's guys like that it's just like a weird filmography. Yeah.

It's hard to predict when they're going to connect. Yeah. Right. But this I don't know I remember well this is

This feels like a movie that someone got fired off of and he came in at the last minute, but it's not. It's not, which is so strange. It also feels like one of those things where like... But it would never work that way because no one would get fired off this movie. Adding Andy Shankman doesn't get fired off this movie

and the studio is like, why don't we call Ang Lee and see if he wants to make this? They wouldn't do it. This feels like one of those things where it's just like, well, there's just kind of not a movie there. I can see how they'd be like, oh, this story's kind of interesting if someone gives you the five-minute version of it. Like, isn't it funny how this guy was instrumental in taking Woodstock when it's really in planning Woodstock, right? But then when you actually stretch it out to this distance, like guy wrote a book yeah about his experience his his

sort of memoir about the time which a lot of people said was totally full of shit yeah and i also can't imagine it being a very engrossing book to read this book is a movie is not about the planning of woodstock woodstock is planned off screen and happens off screen it's sort of just a bunch of incidents that happen that aren't very sort of like woodstock adjacent kindstock adjacent, kind of. And the movie is kind of... Housing people who went to Woodstock, it could be called. The movie is stunningly lacking both dramatic and comedic tension. Like, it could pick a lane so easily and be like, the Woodstock's the backdrop for this guy's inner struggle and journey.

Sure. This helping him realize who he is, which the movie kind of pointedly doesn't do. Because his memoir is about how he had been in the Stonewall riots, and it had awakened him to being more openly gay. I mean, a lot of this stuff is just whispered

in the movie. The movie deals with the sexuality very strangely, and the other thing is, at the beginning they're setting up a very conventional scene with him and his sister, who, if this movie was made two years later, would have been Jenny Slate. And also, it felt like a deleted scene. Correct. I love watching movies where there's a deleted scene in the movie.

Yes. The best. They just forgot it. Sure. But that scene where she's setting up like, oh, here's his apartment. It's being packed up in boxes. He wants to be a designer. Like all this stuff, the struggle.

And then he just sort of becomes like a lump for the rest of the movie until at the end, he's like, fucking I'm leaving. Right. It doesn't really feel like there's any sort of like internal journey in between those two. Because at the end of the movie, he's like,

my parents are idiots and annoying. And we're like, yeah, we, we know we've been watching the movie. And by the way, I feel like considering the movie already started, Demetri Martin,

that could have been Jenny. It could have, she could have been in there anyway. Cause obviously, Ang Lee was hanging out and invite them up and he was like, I'm coming back to America after Les Koch and I need to go to Rafifi and see who's hot

because I'm casting this movie. Demetri Martin, I guess he'd been in The Rocker. This is the big thing I want to talk about. Because I was diehard Demetri Martin at the time. My fandom for Demetri Martin. Where were you on that? Iri Martin. I was like not.

Where were you on that? I liked him. Sure. I saw him a lot at comedy shows earlier than this, like 2005, 6, 7. And I always was happy to see him, but I would never have been like, oh, he's playing somewhere for $25. I should go to that. This was the tail end of my Dimitri Martin is my guy. And you were speaking on behalf of America, the industry

and everyone in general. What was weird is that I did feel like I would go to those $25 shows. I spent my like 18th birthday like seeing Demetri Martin with my mom at like one of those shows, you know. I will never forget being in college in another country, but still watching the Daily Show

and him doing one of his little, remember he would do those segments. Yeah, he was a correspondent. His first ever segment where he says, he's talking about like the youth and he says to someone like, start this sentence and then just stares at them rather than finish it. And us just being like, that's the funniest thing we've, like, you know, him like cracking our brains open.

So I was all in on him for like one year. Yeah. And then I was just like, he just does the same thing over and over again. And I got like so sick of him. I'd say I was out on him very fast. I think I had four or five years. He's cute though. He was my guy.

He very much spoke to like teenage Griffin. There was a level of like the, the postmodern sort of like, I'm going to push the boundaries of what this thing is, the craft that went into it. And also just, I was super into that kind of earnestness and sincerity. He was also one of those people who was deceptively old.

Like he was already like 37. That was the crazy thing I'd hear about him. Cause I'd have like older friends, like in the comedy scene when I was like the 16 year old, like going into the UCB. And then I knew the people who were like 30 and they'd be like, that guy's like older than me. And I sat next to him at a bar and he's really weird he's weird

and then i remember marin despised him correct like as a concept more not as a person it's one of the best marin stories of all time the early wtf stories like this fucking guy with his guitar like you could just tell it hates him came in with a fucking skateboard no one of my favorite marin being an asshole stories is that Dimitri somehow got passed at the comedy cellar despite that not being the kind of place that would seem

to be welcoming of him because he was so different there was no one else trying to do anything he would do jokes about like graphs he would just make

a graph the graph was the joke the graph was the joke delivery system it wasn't like you ever notice when you're looking

at a graph that it was more like I'm going to draw a graph and if he made The graph was the joke delivery system. It wasn't like, you ever notice when you're looking at a graph that it was more like, I'm going to draw a graph. And if he made a graph joke, it would be told using bells. It wouldn't be, he'd never use a graph for a graph. He'd use one medium to tell a different joke.

But like, I just remember his, his Comedy Central Presents special was like, he was the guy who figured out the commercial act breaks so that he made each act of his special very distinct structurally. And I was just like, fuck, this is what I want to do. And I was like, this sort of overlapped with me being in denial about wanting to be funny, like wanting to be a comedian.

Imagine how many comedians like yourself are on their way after watching that to Staples to buy a pad of paper and a marker. 100% me. 100% me. Suddenly Staples became the hot place for young comics because of Demetri Martin. Office Max is like, who are all these losers? When I started doing comedy, I was so prop heavy

in that kind of way with like poster boards and like PowerPoint slides. Quick question. Were you the worst comedian of all time when you were doing that? Would you admit, argue? No, I was kind of pretty good at that. I would say honestly, I became the worst comedian of all time after that. Okay, fair. Like I was pretty good at that i would say honestly i became the worst comedian of all time after that okay fair like i was pretty good at that and then i was like fuck

i should try to do traditional stand-up and then i was really bad for oh you're a good stand-up for a while okay okay i didn't know you back then probably right yeah no but i was doing my like dimitri brown ripoff stuff and it was working really well for a bit but I did feel that prejudice it is a little limiting yes it felt a little limiting and it was also like I gotta show up every night with my like bucket full of glitter and everything like I just felt like a loser the night where I hit the apex was I

like Andy Kindler seething at you yeah because I used to do this bit that was me doing like myself from the future had time traveled back to give me my stand-up routine. For fuck's sake. And the stand-up routine was all about how I shouldn't do comedy. And it was, like, delivered by the heroin addict, like, junkie living in a space car version of myself.

Who was trying to, like, rewrite the past so he wouldn't end up so destitute. And I had, like, glitter and a time capsule and all this shit. And it, like, did well. And my agent was, like, sending it around to people, and he was like, great news, this, like, new Comedy Central stand-up show.

They really responded well. They want you to do a showcase to maybe be on the show. And I was like, oh, shit. And I went to this showcase at a traditional stand-up club, and I was like, hey, I'm at a,

which I mostly wasn't doing. I was doing, like, comedy theaters and basement bars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, hey, I'm here for the showcase. And they went, you're here for the showcase? And I went, yeah.

And they went, for the Def Jam showcase? Oh my God. And it was a show called Russell Simmons Presents the Ruckus. That was him trying to do Def Jam at a different network without the Def Jam name. And I was the only white comedian. Oh no. You're the Jim Carrey? Everyone else was doing traditional stand-up, and I was

first up with a bucket of glitter. How did that go? Horribly. Because what I would have done is quit comedy and possibly America. I would have just fled the country. It was so bad that it actually warped the rest of the show, because then every comic... Everyone had to come on and be like, what the fuck was that?

Yeah, because every comic was like, this is my chance to get on TV. I got a tight five. I've been honing for years. Let me just do the exact jokes I have planned. And then they got on stage and had to address glitter for the first 90 seconds because it was still on the mic. It was still on the stage. First of all, I don't want to know what the glitter was for. I think it's better as a mystery.

100%. You just have a bucket and somehow it ends up everywhere. Pointedly haven't told you why. Yeah, no, I think it's better left unsaid. Yes. But the point is, I think, can you imagine what a sure thing it was for him being put in this movie?

Oh, a hundred percent. Like, can you imagine the enthusiasm where it's like, you're this alt comic. Right. You've kind of broken out above a lot of your peers. The guy who just won people Oscars for his last American movie.

Right. You're the guy. You're in the movie now. Well, and you talk about the $25 show thing. When I was going to him escalating to playing like rock clubs and things like that, right? It was like, he feels like he's maybe in the stage that Steve Martin was in right before The Jerk, where he's just got such a loyal following for doing this weird postmodern thing.

And the question is like, how is he going to translate it? And I think he had done the... Or he'd started doing important things, which... Well, important things like making this movie. Important Things is 09 this year. Right. Because I know that was like... Had a great...

Mulaney wrote on that show. There's some really good bits on that show. It's not consistent. But I think they signed him up for that show in 2006. Jon Stewart. Jon Benjamin, I think, wrote on that show and like Dan Mint there's some really good bits on that show it's not consistent but I think they signed him up for that show in 2006 Jon Stewart Jon Benjamin I think

wrote on that show yes Leo Allen all those guys Jon Stewart like developed like the three or four

daily show spin-offs he wants to do set up in 2007 maybe and then the show took a long time to actually get made because he booked

this and it put everything on hold. But the thing that happened before that was he was going to play the second lead in Moneyball. Right. In Soderbergh's Moneyball. Steven Soderbergh's Moneyball, it was going to be Brad Pitt and Demetri Martin

instead of Jonah Hill. And then David Justice was going to be the third lead. Playing himself. He had the pitch where the baseball players could just play themselves. And he said there was a character that was clippy from MS Word who was going to be the third lead. He had the pitch where the baseball players could just play themselves. And he said there was a character that was like Clippy from MS Word who was going to explain all the stats on screen.

He had like real life interviews. It sounded insane and they pulled the plug on that movie a week before it started filming. And it felt like Demetri Ramirez was like, okay, he's getting a TV show. Someone's going to figure out how to make him a movie star. He had sold like three scripts to DreamWorks that were constantly like in development.

As of like four years ago, Michelle Hasnavichus was going to make one of them with Zach Galifianakis and Paul Rudd. Oh, interesting. He had a high concept movie. He was going to make the worst movie of all time. It wasn't the one that actually got made. Sure. It was a different script that he had sold to DreamWorks and Spielberg was like, this is great. Pitch me more movies.

And I think Spielberg bought like three of his pitches. So it was this notion of like even if he wasn't for everyone, somehow he's got like a youth audience like 17 year old Griffin Newman in the palm of his hands. Right. So they knew they could count on you coming to see any Woodstock movie he was in. Right. Then Soderbergh was the guy who was

like I'm going to give him a supporting part in a movie. That movie falls apart. But he had sort of gotten the sheen of like a serious director was gonna give him a big role I guess people assume right so then when he was announced as the lead for this it was wow that's fucking strange but also I guess that means he's really got the goods that's the other Ang Lee thing like when you hear that you weren't like that seems stupid and stunt casting you're just like i guess yeah he right i put my faith and he he knows what he's doing or whatever i really wanted to find like the you know imdb trivia list of other actors that were considered i couldn't find anything

well the problem with it is like just everyone's just decided not to care about this movie there's just nothing it's not like there are people who even mean but if you just like if you look at ang lee's wikipedia page it goes like then he made lust caution paragraph and then after taking what suck he made life of pie like there's just no acknowledgement of it really like the 13th floor of the building where it just goes from 12 to 14. i really wanted to know who else could have been in the mix it's also weird to uh jumping around but adam pally who i know is in this movie and he said something once about another performer and he was like this actor making this movie is like if jim carrey went from in living color to the majestic and i was like that's a great way to look at the arc of some people's careers and that's exactly what this is like it's like this guy is kind of popping

what should we put him in a super low-key drama instead of something that utilizes anything people like about him it's it's a very odd situation now the two things i think of are i think seamus said that he was the one who who kind of picked dimitri martin because his daughters had showed him clips of his stand-up and i know i was in a stage where i was like the annoying like garden state like listen to this will change your life person with like dimitri martin bits at parties for like an insufferable number of years i really think about somehow how good it is that we weren't friends in certain years when you would put your headphones on someone at the party would you describe the chart he was drawing i'm gonna do hard no i agree with you exactly that kind of person is a nightmare excuse me this comedy bit

excuse me three comedy points to alex he made a joke that you guys didn't even hear because you were so busy dunking on me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. At the expense of the podcast. What was his joke? I'm sorry. I asked if one Griffin put his headphones on someone at a party

and said, listen to this bit. He was like, now what he's drawing when he says this. You can't see it because I recorded this off of my TV, but it's really funny. He's doing this thing that's like a stick figure, but it doesn't really look like a person. He's doing a joke about the like a stick figure but it doesn't really look like a person. He's doing a joke about the shape

of the state of Wyoming. For the record, it was more me making people watch YouTube clips. Sure. In the early days of doing that.

But it felt a little similar to me too. I also, if I met myself at that age now, I would never want to speak to him ever again.

Ben's nodding. At that period of time, it felt like he was kind of like where Bo Burnham was a couple years ago. Okay. Where he had sort of like evangelical teenagers around him and the question of what he was going to translate it into and people sort of scoffing at the like, what's the thing? He's like, cute? Like, what's the deal here?

But I want to say something. Yeah. Demetri Martin is not Jewish. That's shocking. Which is crazy. He's Greek. he's greek orthodox yes i believe that is correct so to me it is it's not offensive but it's a little annoying to me in my head the narrative i've constructed which is the james james's kids show him dimitri martin he's like that'd be good for the jewish guy yeah but he's jewish he's jewish though i mean sure yeah i mean he's like, that'd be good for the Jewish guy. Yeah, but he's Jewish. He's Jewish though. I mean, sure.

I mean, he's obviously not. He reads Jewish. Yes. Yeah. I do have that thing though where this came up in the subreddit recently with the Ruth Bader Ginsburg movie where it's like,

I like Felicity Jones a lot as an actress. She just 100% doesn't read as Jewish. She is horseshit casting. And she might be good. She might be good in it, but Ruth Bader Ginsburg feels like such an important Jewish figure. I know. And I feel like her Jewishness,

not religiously, but culturally, is kind of like key to her existence. That's weird. That's how I feel about Felicity Jones. You feel like she is. Her Jewishness is key to her existence. It's key to her existence.

I see that porcelain British skin, going back to David's question earlier about Christopher Robin, and I just think, Oh boy, look at that. Look at, look at that. Uh,

so generous. So Jewish, right? I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. Generous. So it seems like he's Jewish.

Right. Right. Exactly. And also, our full name was generous. So it's also far as he shortened it when he was hiding on that planet. Um, but,

but I do like as, as a big time New York cultural Jew, I do, as a big-time New York cultural Jew, I do have that Jew-dart. Big-time New York cultural Jew. Big-time New York cultural Jew. I do have that. I didn't realize we had Fran Lebowitz here. Yeah, it's me and Fran. Downtown Griffey Noom.

Downtown Griffey Noom. He's hanging out with Fran all the time. Franny Leaps. I do have that ping when someone's on screen and they're not Jewish and they're playing someone who's culturally Jewish like this. I noted it. Two British actors

and one Greek Orthodox guy and they're all at least the parents are I got no beef with Staunton and Goodman. I think they're doing a pretty good impression of it and they're doing the dialect. I mean not the dialect. They're doing the fucking accent pretty well. Demetri Martin is like selectively going heavy on the

gas with like, come on, mom, there's a concert here. We can't have people. And then sometimes it's just doing his normal voice. Goodman is Jewish, and I love him. I mean, I grew up with him. Oh, I didn't know he was actually Jewish. Yeah, Imelda Staunton is Irish as fuck, which is kind of funny because she can kind of do whatever.

She does work. I'm just happy to see Jewish characters in a movie. I don't care who's playing them. I just think it's cool for a movie to actually commit. To be like, these are some Jews. As opposed to like the, they came together joke where it's like a vaguely Jewish leading man.

Yeah. Like I like that. It's just like, these are Jews. There's a random moment of a hate crime that has nothing to do with anything and never comes back. It's really not made clear why these people are. That like drives me crazy.

Something like, this is where I leave you. Is that what it's called? This is where I leave you. to do with anything and never comes back. It's really not made clear why these people are... The thing that drives me crazy is something like this is where I leave you. Is that what it's called? This is where I leave you is the one that had no truth. I thought you were about to say something drives you crazy and just get up and leave.

You know what? Something drives me crazy. This is where I leave you. Hey, where'd Griffin go? This is where I leave you. So I'm going to run down the cast of This is where I leave you.

We're almost done. I'm sorry. I literally thought you were going to say the cast of Taking Woodstock. Well, we could run down. It's quite an insane cast. This might be the episode where you bring back the performance review. I mean, okay. A lot of fails.

Yeah. The only Jew in the movie is Corey Stoll, who is not someone you would be like, that guy is definitely Jewish. No, I wouldn't have felt that. Catherine Hahn, number two, is not Jewish but is married to a Jew. Yeah, and kind of plays Jewish. And much like Demetri Martin is Jewish.

Right, exactly. She's just there. But Catherine Hahn also is married into the family. You're right. He's not one of the siblings. I'm just going through the cast. Adam Driver, not Jewish, but like, I'll buy it. Whatever. But they go like, that's literally casting room like, what are you talking about?

He's got a lot of face. He totally plays a Jewish. Exactly. He's just, there's a lot of features. Right, it was fucking. Then you got Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Dax Shepard, Timothy Olyphant, which is offensive, Jane Fonda, Connie Britton, Rose Byrne. None of these people are Jewish.

Okay, now I have seen this movie. Not all those characters are supposed to play Jewish. I understand. The ones who are really supposed to be Jewish are Fonda, Bateman, Faye, Stahl, and Driver. Casting Jane Fonda as a Jew is outrageous. Right. And then casting Jason Bateman and Tina

Faye as her children is absurd. Tina Faye's also Greek. Maybe there's some Greek Jew thing that Hollywood can't figure out the difference between. It's like the weird 1940s. He's ethnic. He plays ethnic. Ethnic white guy. Okay. It could be from Brooklyn. Well, they're not blonde, so I guess they could be

Jewish. Right, right, right. Put them in that shit pile with the hot dog parts. You know? Just give them one cultural signifier and suddenly they're Jewish. Right. Doesn't matter. The cast of Taking Woodstock, on the other hand, so you got Demetri Martin, Imelda Staunton, coming off an Oscar nomination a couple

years earlier. She had done it for five years, yeah. She'd done a Potter in between. You're right, it's four. And again, giving a performance that everyone was just like, this is it. You're going to win something for this. You're going. For his third lead, he picks venerable British

theater actor Henry Goodman. Liev Schreiber, who comes in late and hot he picks venerable British theater actor, Henry Goodman. Yeah. Uh, Liev Schreiber, uh, who, who comes in late and hot, you know, he overshoots the runway. One might say,

uh, Jonathan Groff, well cast, probably the best casting in the movie. I mean, I don't love the performance. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's pretty good. I have Liev appearing at 56 minutes. Wow. That sounds right. In a two hour movie. I actually, I watched this movie in real guy. I have Liev appearing at 56 minutes. Wow. That sounds right. In a two-hour movie. I actually watched this movie in two parts, like morning, evening,

and him entering was when I turned it off. You turned it into more of a miniseries. Yeah, exactly. And you said, this is where I leave you. I did. Eugene Levy. Who I think is maybe the best performance in the movie. I was bummed when he sort of disappeared.

When's he back? I know, but I really... maybe the best performance in the movie. I was bummed when he sort of disappeared. When's he bad? I know, but I really... Bringing down the house? Trailer? I've never seen the movie, but he's certainly bad in the trailer. You're right. He tanked it in the trailer. Alex! You got me straight tripping, boo. Thank you. I was waiting. I'm glad someone brought it up. You got me straight

tripping, boo. One of the most horrible sentences to ever have been unleashed upon American culture. Ben, can you cut out me saying, when's he bad? He's bad all the time. What am I talking about? I can't tell what's worse. Do you want to, whatever the line was, do you want to go see what the center of the

universe looks like? Or you got me straight tripping boo? You got me straight tripping boo is the number one worst of all time. I believe he repeats it a second time at the end of the movie when he's spun around in a chair and revealed to have corn roast. You got me straight tripping boo is also the worst line to ever make a movie 100 million dollars which is what that line probably did no it's what i'm saying but like that i was gonna say i was gonna say that's the thing that pushes that movie to 40 opening weekend is people

could not get over you got me straight tripping like spielberg will say like jaws it's like 50 percent the score you know he'll like break it down like that that movie's success is like 80 that stupid line well you remember boo fever i mean kids couldn't stop tripping boo jeffrey dean morgan adam pally paul dano uh kelly garner mimi gummer dan fogler skylar austin it keeps going far down because i feel like fogler is well but see that all right fogler well we can talk about it. Because on the poster, it's Dimitri first and then the rest of the cast alphabetically,

so Fogler is actually second. It's also impossible to read any credits on the poster because it has the tie-dye, bendy... Paul Deno I thought was uncredited, and then I realized he's just not in the main credit block, which feels very weird. His part is small small but he was already like a big deal

at this point yeah I think maybe they just thought to have his appearance be a surprise or something I don't know it also feels like a scene that was added later

it does this movie is so fucking weird it's like wait nothing happened in the movie it's like a whole scene where yeah it's like

oh you don't have a scene where the main character trips in the Woodstock movie let's just get a green screen with the sky and then shoot like a 40 minute trips in the Woodstock movie. Let's just get a green screen with the sky and then shoot like a 40-minute trip sequence in a van.

Right. And let's just get the, you know, Paul's blowing up from there will be blood. Let's get him to like come over and... And you know the old

axiom in Hollywood. It's, I think, Louis B. Mayer was the one who said this. Don't have characters trip, have characters trip, boo. If you want to make a hundred million.

I can't believe Alex is laughing at that. It was good. I just wanted to know where it was going because it was going to be good. I mean, it's coming from the guy who loves Eugene Levy. Because he's never been bad. I mean, come on, David. You're over here straight tripping, boo. In your definitive ranking of all the Jim's dad performances in every direct-to-video

American Pie, you're like, when's he ever bad? We've talked about this. You're always, when you're watching one of those, you're like, when's he ever bad? We've talked about this. He brings it. You're always, when you're watching one of those, you're like, when's he showing up? And then he's like, it turns out I'm the camp counselor. And you're like, here he is. So it annoys me tremendously that at this point,

that's what he's doing. And then he's like, well, I'll do this kind of serious, muted turn in the Yang Li picture. I'll have a pipe. It'll be a very serious... I'll have thick Coke bottle glasses. It'll be a very serious supporting role and I'll really show them that I've still got it. And it's just so annoying because

it's just in service of nothing. It's annoying because he could be doing this all the time. This is one of those movies. And he said, he's like, I'm the executive director of The Naked Mile. Like, I'm on the board. Here, you are my library. You want to check out the book of love?

I forgot about that one. You better be straight tripping boo. I can't believe they didn't make like 16 direct-to-video bringing down the house sequels where he just has to like live with different hotel. Like you could just do like a different place every time. Like bringing down the leisure center. The Wood the hotel. He could just do a different place every time.

Bringing down the leisure center. Yeah, the Woodstock Hotel. He is kind of bringing that down. Eugene Levy is one of those guys. He's bringing in the cash. He's one of those guys where I don't fault him at all for cashing in that hard because it's like, Eugene Levy, you're one of the great underappreciated

Right, he only cashes in 15 years after SCTV. More than. Yeah, exactly. More than than it's like he's like like in his like late 50s early 60s and suddenly becomes like a bankable guy where it's like they'll pay you two million dollars to show up for two days right like olsen twins if you've had that much integrity for that long why don't you just take that money and at least retire comfortably you know what after the book of love he really throttled down. He just doesn't make movies anymore. He was in

Medea's Witness Protection. Right. Above the title. And then the next movie he made was Finding Dory, which I didn't even know he was in. He's Dory's dad.

And then he was in the Goon sequel, but that's just because he's in Goon 1. And now he's in the Schitt's Creek. That's his... Right, which people say

is good, actually. I haven't watched that. When you listed the cast, did you list Emile Hirsch? I feel like you... I did list Emile Hirsch. Yeah, I haven't watched it. When you listed the cast, did you list Emile Hirsch? I feel like you... I did list Emile Hirsch, yes. I'm sorry. It's a pretty insane cast of people who obviously just wanted to be in an Ang Lee movie after

Brokeback Mountain, despite the fact that not a single character, including, I would argue, the lead character, has any kind of an arc. No, right. And every single character you just listed disappears from the movie with no resolution. Yes, every character is in it kind of for a chunk enough that you're like oh this is gonna build to something and then never appears again no every single one and you kind of wish at a certain point you're like i wish they gave them the pat shitty screenwriting 101 arc freeze frame on emil hirsch and it's like and then he opened a

pancake house and not even that i just mean like emile hirsch is introduced as like okay that's totally fucked up right living in the van humorously named billy right and you're like okay what's the catharsis gonna be is it that um you know like dimitri's gonna help him like regain his peace which he kind of does i would argue it's the theater troupe that causes him to regain his, right. He's into the theater troupe, but,

but the character was introduced. You're like, he's just amused by them. I feel like he's going to be the, the magical PTSD fairy who like somehow teaches Dimitri the lessons. And then he kind of lesson does like, what about your mom? The lesson of this movie is that Dimitri's mom is like a skin Flint and he

should leave. Like that's the only lesson. Well, that's the thing we're talking around here is this is one of the least effective lead performances in a major film ever. And coming from like... I feel bad. He seems like a nice man.

He does too. And it's one of those things where it's like I'm watching and I'm like, I don't know if he's technically doing anything wrong, but it is just so thoroughly uncompelling. It's a horrible performance. It's like a void. It's a void,

but I'm watching it and I'm like trying to figure out what the issue is. I mean, it's a horribly written character. It's not, but still, I feel bad

because he made this movie called Dean a couple years back. Which he directed. She wrote and directed and starred in. Yeah. And it has this sort of

Garden State-y vibe because it's about like um his mom dies his dad has become this kind of mean jerk he's played by kevin klein so obviously he's a mean jerk and like i don't know he goes on like an adventure to la and meets women and it's like a horrible movie that i like completely despise but at the press screening regular press screening not a festival he was there and like before the movie started was like hi i worked really hard on this movie and i'm just so glad you guys are gonna watch it like i talked and i felt like so bad he seemed very nice yeah and then i watched it and like

hated it anyway what did he do after this movie he was in contagion all right so soderbergh got him right soderbergh like gave him the like me role. I mean, he did his TV show, right? Right, he did two seasons of that. Yeah, he's in Take Me Home Tonight with Dan Fogler. Which he's pretty funny in, actually. That movie sucks. That was probably shot closer to this. That was shot before. That movie was shot in 07.

That was like Topher right off of Venom. He's in In a World. Yes, which he's actually good in. I honestly don't remember, Bennett. He's the love interest in that. I remember that movie being cute. He's the love interest in that. He's actually In A World. Yes, which he's actually good in. I honestly don't remember a minute. He's the love interest in that. I remember that movie being cute. He's the love interest in that. He's actually charming in that.

But there's got to be like a couple year gap there, even between. Yes. Oh, 100% still in. In A World is 2013. And the 2011 release was shot like four years earlier. I went to a taping of Important Things where he was saying like in between setups while he was just sort of

like riffing and talking to the audience uh he was like this show takes so long because i just like i'm obsessed and i have to do everything and he was like on stage preparing the the props and everything and i think there was a part of him where like doing that show kind of broke him. Because you know the crazy story about him that like he hit his like wall with stand up and is like I want to do a show where like I made every single thing.

So I have to teach myself how to play guitar, teach myself how to draw, and teach myself how to sew because I only want to be wearing clothing that I made myself, which sounds like a nightmare. I think it's charming, but, but it's also, it's the thing that like Mark Maron said, like Ben and I are so firmly united against you.

I know. I know. You and I, did I, I don't know. Did I know you back then? No, no, certainly not. No. Good. Cause you sounded really, really hard to hang out with. But Mark Maron

and other people who were like friends with him who would go on Mark Maron would be like, yeah Demetri Martin's one of those guys where we go like thank God he's not a serial killer because he's so obsessive and so thorough when he wants to do something that if what he wanted to do wasn't this innocuous it would be a nightmare for us. The Maron joke, which I

never got to, the best Maron slam of Demetri Martin all the time was Demetri gets passed at the comedy cellar and he walks in carrying the skateboard he used to get there and a guitar and all the graphs and Marin just like over his shoulder says, Hey, Demetri, you ever try writing jokes?

It's just so funny to think of Marin thinking of this guy as like a sort of Brooklyn carrot top, you know what I mean? The enemy. It's just so funny to think of Maren thinking of this guy as like a sort of Brooklyn Carrot Top. You know what I mean? The enemy. The enemy. This is Gallagher. This is indie Gallagher.

Right. But it is just weird. Like, here's the crazy thing. So you were saying, oh, you're casting this movie. Guarantee that 18-year-old Griffin goes to see it, right? Not so fast. I skipped this movie after being so excited for it because the reviews were so

negative and so critical of him where I was like, this is going to bum me out to watch this and had avoided watching it until last night. So no one had seen this? No. I saw it. Ben sent a funny email when he watched it. We have to give some props to that email. Yeah. I sent an email

that said, can I give Woodstock back? No, you've taken it. No, I don't want it anymore. And let's also say the other thing was at first you watched the wrong movie because you texted us and you said I didn't realize that Ang Lee had directed a Limp Bizkit

concert. Yeah, I got confused. I'm actually very upset that you mentioned that because I had directed a Limp Bizkit concert. Yeah, I got confused. Woodstock 99, baby. You might watch Woodstock 99. I'm actually very upset that you mentioned that because I had, we used all of our time

prior to recording to just talk about nothing, but I had wanted to set up and I bet that we would only acknowledge Woodstock 94. Oh, man. Oh, I'm so sorry.

Yeah, and I forgot. Well, no, it's my fault. I've been thinking of this for weeks and I forgot to say. You're like, this movie's so anachronistic. They set Woodstock 30 years earlier than it actually happened. Well, just, it's my fault. I've been thinking of this for weeks and I forgot to say. You're like, this movie is so anachronistic. They set Woodstock 30 years earlier than it actually happened. Well, just to say that there was that one and then one more.

Right. It's crazy. They only did this one more time. I thought that would have been really funny. But now I forgot it and now you're out there with the Limp Bizkit. Sorry. It is kind of astonishing to look at the set lists for 94 and 99. The drastic difference in music between those two,

like it's not that long of a time, but like Sheryl Crow and like, uh, Metallica and Aerosmith, like night, you know? And then like, it's like fucking Limp Bizkit.

And you know, there's a whole subsection on the Wikipedia page titled violence. I just remember what's insane. Clown posse corn. Yeah remember i mean woodstock 99 was kind of twisted quite twisted i do remember the news covering woodstock 99 as if it was 9-11 like there were a lot of like they'd play the clips and they'd cut back to the main anchor and he'd go where did we lose our way and it would be like footage of two guys like brutally like decking each other in the mud and it was just mud and blood well like corn was on stage with their

weird like complete approval i wasn't i wanted to go because it does when you hear it described it does sound like a scheme to exterminate the nation's youth because it's like you were not to bring in water yeah and water bottles of water cost four dollars yeah there's a bit in this movie where eugene levy's like they're charging a dollar to fill up a bottle for a water that really got my goat i really hated that scene oh it's terrible i was like we're doing a bit about how is he going to talk about like shredded jeans next like what is selling them water in bottles fees on tickets it's uh but one thing that like they think they're the ticket master huh this movie also tries to

like explain that somehow dimitri martin accidentally made woodstock free when like woodstock was only free because they were like we can't like have a ticket guy like it's too many people that was one of a couple things that like fundamentally I'd avoided this movie because I, so you didn't see it. No, never until last night. Wow.

Because a, I, you called dips on it five months ago. That's why, because I was like, this is a great opportunity to see this movie. Like I was like, that's,

that's a reason enough because otherwise it'll never happen. It's a great point. There was no way I would ever seen this movie. Did you buy it on Blu-ray? I signed up for a seven day free trial of Cinemax to watch this movie, which I better cancel. Or else I'll pay $10 to watch this movie. Yeah, I rented it in SD, which I don't regret.

Oh, wow. I rented it in HD. It's a decent transfer. It just wasn't worth the extra dollar because I knew it wouldn't be worth it. But I always avoided it. Eric Gauthier's cinematography. I'm sure it looks slightly better. I just avoided it

because I hate hippies. I hate baby boomers and I hate nostalgia for this era. I know how much you hate hippies. We've talked about hippies before. Why do you hate hippies?

For obvious reasons. Because all that music sucks. This entire era is something I hate. Alex is kind of the cartman of this podcast. I'm loving this. Get out of here.

There's no metal. There's no good music there. Are you serious? Yeah, I am. I thought you'd be on board with this. No, it's like the best time for music. No, it's not. It's off by like 10 years.

What? If there was like a Woodstock 79, it would have been like good and 89 would have been my Woodstock. Can you guys have a blood and mud fight, please? Yeah, Woodstock 89 would have been nothing but stuff I like. Right, right, right.

Unless it was like synthy 80s bands But I just like I don't You're a metal guy Yeah and like you know punk that would have been forming at this time So I hate this era But see that was a different time For music where like That wouldn't happen because

That was like a That wasn't mainstream music This was a time when mainstream music was really good and it wasn't divided like it is now like there were everyone was going to see like a guy playing a bongo a sitar and then like peter paul and mary yeah it was like such a a mishmash of different kinds of musicians it was such a cool, amazing. I'm honestly shocked that you're so,

I thought you would be like a strict, like, you know, you're talking about black flag before we started recording. I thought you'd be like, yeah, all that hippie shit sucks. It's not for me guys.

I don't cut the tension in this room. I don't care. I'm very surprised. Honestly. No, I, I've always been, uh,

like, sure. I've had my time where I'm like, fuck hippies, but I, I've been living in where I'm like, fuck hippies. Me too. I've been living it since I was 12 years old. Going on 22 years of feeling that.

But my dad and my mom were hippies. They went to Woodstock. Sure, sure, sure. And so I grew up with that. That's so funny because you always describe your dad as this kind of straight-laced guy, but then you talk about, like, he does love the sci-fi. He's got that sort of edge to him, right? Well, he's like, he's just an angry dude he's an angry so yeah at some point he like so when he saw what's thy 99 he's like that's what

it should have been should have been a little bit more anger a little more fighting my parents are very adjacent to that too and my dad's always worked in classic rock radio oh that's led to me just not liking classic rock right right rock and especially when we were younger that was what owned the classic rock station but I think my mom went to like Newport but not Woodstock or something like that but yeah I just I've always hated everything about the nostalgia for this era

and I'm glad that after this movie it like disappeared from the culture which I'm very excited to try to figure out I feel like between Forrest Gump and this, it was a viable thing you could sell. You're right. You're right.

My theory last night was that the failure of across the universe in this movie ended all of that for mass cultural 60s. And then all of a sudden people that age had to only see movies about people their age, finding love again. All right. I'll pull in a David Sims. Cause I'm realizing that uh like eugene

levy uh hippies suck okay a lot of this oh you're oh i see that's the i actually am realizing now kind of sucks but i just have a soft spot for it fair but do you just do you think about the fact that the last four acts at woodstock were crosbyby, Stills, Nash & Young, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sha Na Na, and then Hendrix. That's what he's talking about, where it was just like, Sha Na Na wants, alright, sure, go do an hour, Sha Na Na. And I guess that even if it's not your kind of movie,

the coalition between the most popular bands also being the most respected bands, that they were kind of one in the same, of how they've like aged was a pretty unique phenomenon. And it was like tied into a cultural movement. It's like, you know, I don't know if like there were the bands right now that were so tied into like hashtag the resistance, which also were going platinum. Sure.

And they all did a festival together. It would feel like such an epic thing so i think like in a weird way also this movie um not like demystifies woodstock but this narrative that is kind of this movie does nothing right no no but this is this is kind of my argument is that uh you know it's it's a narrative that has been sold but this idea like, look how beautiful it was. Like, all these people

came from all over just to feel the music and it was just like the joy and pleasure of it. And then this, it's like money guys coming in in helicopters and you're like,

right, it was still like some weird money bullshit. But I think this movie gets it wrong because Woodstock is weird because it's because like, it was a bunch of hippies

who had enough business acumen to be like, if we threw a big concert, we'd make a ton of hippies who had enough business acumen to be like if we threw a big concert we'd make a ton of money right and then they made no money yes because it was a disaster yes the concert is a disaster all you ever hear about is like it was fucking raining they're shocking each everyone's like drowning in mud like it's terrible and then it is a lifelong cultural event that children still know the name of. Right. All because of a really good movie, mostly. Yes.

Which is how they made all their money. Which is called Taking Woodstock, finally. Exactly. Which we're talking about today. And that's how we bring ourselves to the story. Because prior to this movie, it was really not known that Woodstock was a thing. Yeah, exactly. Completely. It's sort of the same thing with CBGB, that movie.

Great two great films. People had forgotten about it completely. That movie came out and we were like, yes. Of course, this was such an important time for music. And then people later were like, oh, I can't believe it. I always thought that people talked about that, but I guess it was just after that movie came out. I just remember seeing CBGB's in theater

and going, wow. I mean, I am seeing the film that is a turning point for a filmmaker. This director is going to end up in jail for involuntary manslaughter. And I was right. I was right. I believe he's still serving to this day he's not out no my my point isn't just that like i'm not saying people can't or shouldn't think that this was like a cool thing or good music my point is if nothing could ever be less for me than like romanticizing this era right and i think it is like heinous the way that

this has been sold to baby boomers starting with Forrest Gump. It's just like and I was both incredibly nervous and then kind of pleasantly surprised

that this movie has no music in it. Really? Yeah. Which is incredible. It is incredible. That was when I started feeling like this feels like a movie

that they were about to make and then they lost all the rights. Yeah. And then like the only rights they could have was to say the word woodstock and they couldn't get any music they couldn't get anybody's life rights there's only like one real character in it it's also crazy because when the reviews are kind of people were like he avoids the concert it's like there's already like a definitive documentary at the concert we don't need to

see that this movie borrows that movie's most famous visual thing with the split screen. Right, he's replicating the style of the filmmaking. It's not like they're ignoring the concert, you know, like... Not at all.

But then what I was not prepared for is how perversely they almost make a bit out of avoiding the concert. It's not just like, okay, well, the whole movie takes place in the hotel, so of course he's not there.

No, my thing is that I already basically said, like, they don't just avoid the the concert they also avoid the planning of the concert and instead they make a movie about neither of those things the concert is is wilson on home improvement it's just behind that fence that's funny this movie i was gonna say is like uh uh gareth edwards godzilla if there wasn't the godzilla fight at the end like the whole movie is him ramping up the tension of like you about to see the fight, you pull back, you're about to see the fight, you pull back, so you're ready to

explode until when the final fight happens. And this movie, the movie just ends. Here's the plot of the movie. Demetri Martin is a guy who lives in Bethel. His parents are shitheads. He takes Woodstock. End of plot. Done. He organizes a shitty music festival every year, so he has a music permit.

He's the head of the Board of Commerce, but he also has an apartment in New York that he's lost because he's been paying to keep his parents afloat. He wants to be an interior designer. He's gay. He's not out of the closet, but he's not in the closet. Sure. A hot hippie played by Jonathan Groff shows up and says,

can we do Woodstock here? In a helicopter. And he's like, fine. And they're like, here's a paper bag of money to book the hotel and he's like fine thus ends any more dramatic stakes for his character i have written down that that character shows up 28 minutes in right right and you know that it's based on the real guy because he has the same vest and hair that you know that guy has right right and that's the end of that character's development he just looks like that guy you see him one more time and he seems really stressed out.

And you're like, oh, is something going to happen? Doesn't, not considering that. He plays the character like he knows that this is going to be Woodstock. Instead of some guy who's barely holding a concert together. You also skipped over, prior to the 28 minute mark that I noted when he shows up, that a performance art troupe lives in Dimitri Martin's barn. Yes, correct. Led by Dan Fogler.

And they have a bit where they all get naked, except for Dan Fogler, who wears a blanket around his midsection. Pointedly doesn't show Don. And I was really mad about that. I wanted to see that dick. I really... I just thought it was horrible. Like, just whatever.

Did he think he was too big to display Wang? That's what annoyed me. Because Fogler was kind of, at that moment, Hollywood was like, well, this is definitely going to happen like he was being put in everything it's true I mean this is the Fogler moment

he had like six kind of like either like key supporting parts in like big comedy ensembles Balls of Fury he was the lead in Ben

ding dong perfect ding dong Ben you want to get the door? yep ah yeah here you go. Should I sit right here?

Anywhere you like. I mean, I don't know who you are or what you're doing here. We're in the middle of a recording. How could I? How could we? I mean, you should sit in the one available seat if you want to sit. So here is my resume. If you want to take a look at this, my past experience, work experience. There you go.

Slide. Okay, I'm taking this, but weirdly my thumb is over your name. What is it again? I would say my greatest strength is that I am a grinder. I will do the job you hire me to do, you know, even if it hurts me. And my greatest weakness? I work a little too hard, you know? Sometimes I'm not there for my family in the way I should be, you know?

Because I'm really married to my desk, you know, and the tasks you put before me. Are we talking to a giant sandwich? Yes, of course. It is me. Are we talking to a giant sandwich? Yes, of course. It is me. Mark of J Grilled Cheese. You all know me. This is embarrassing. Ben. Grilled Cheese.

Griffin, can you eat this guy? Get him out of here. No, wait, wait, wait, wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. We should have just. Wait a second. We should have just.

Wait a second. Okay, fine. I brought this guy in here. I found him through zipper girder. Oh, you found him through zipper girder? Yeah, I'm hungry. So I went to the zipper girder. Uh-huh. so i went to i put out a call for so much so you're telling me that you use zip recruiter the platform that finds the right job candidates for you yeah the one that identifies what you're

looking for right finds the people with the right experience and invites them to apply to your job. And I'll tell you, I have just the right experience. And in this case, your job was being eaten by Griffin Newman. I have been a sandwich for 16 years. That's the only thing I've ever done. The only thing I've ever wanted to do. See, I was standing on street corners begging for a sandwich. And people were giving me soups, salads. And then you realize that 80% of employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day.

So I said one day. You said yesterday. Right. I'm hungry. I could use one for about lunch. We usually record around noon. So I typed in sandwich. Well, we're supposed to record around noon.

We usually start recording around 1240 when I show up. Yeah. But then I typed in one sandwich at noon, please. And look who it is right here. Markup J grilled cheese. I mean, it's almost like truly the right candidates are out there. It's just ZipRecruiter is how you find them. It doesn't stop there.

They even spotlight the best applications you receive so you never miss a great match, such as an actual sandwich. So the right candidates are out there, the most delicious candidates. What do you think? Not bad, huh? That's a pretty good guess. A little more salt. Z most delicious candidates. What do you think? Not bad, huh? That's a pretty good guess. A little more salt. ZipRecruiter is how you find them.

Hello, I'm Richard T. Salt. See, I put out a call for this as well. Here's my resume. Can you just eat off, Mike, at this point? Yes, my greatest strength is probably I'm a good collaborator. I work well with others. Shake, shake, shake, shake. Oh, boy. All right, so right now

Blank Check listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free. That's right. For free. Yeah, turn him down. Turn him down. Just go to ZipRecruiter. Sorry for eating online. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash blank. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash blank. Griffin,

get the food out of your mouth. ZipRecruiter.com slash blank. They're get the food out of your mouth. ZipRecruiter.com slash blank. They're the smartest way to hire. I mean, look, now we don't even have to close the door because I swallowed our guest. You mean you don't have to reopen the door? I'm still here. Not anymore.

You ate the salt? Well, technically I ate the salt shaker. Now I'm eating the salt. Can we, now that you've eaten. By the way, that was the stupidest thing we've ever done. I don't know what you had planned, but Ben saved our lives. It is so kind of you to assume. That you had something planned. Yes.

Great moment. Jeez, what was that? In the middle of a Dan Fogler career recap. That was almost like a Dan Fogler character over there, right? That's good because people were just starting to lean in being like, here comes the Fogler files. And then they're like, I gotta wait.

I'll let me get some Fogler. I gotta wait for the rest of that Fogler bit. Fogler's been in so many movies that sat on the shelf. It's crazy. He was also in Fanboys. Take Me Home Tonight. That's an amazing distinction for an actor. I've actually been in more movies that sat on the shelf than any other

actor. It makes it look like he had a more dispersed career as a result. Oh, God. Can I talk about Take Me Home Tonight for one minute? Because I find it really fascinating. I'm a fan of that movie. I've never seen it. Topher was in that period where everyone decided he was the next Tom Hanks and was doing rom-coms.

Then he got Venom and they were like, oh shit, this guy's going to be a big fucking movie star. He went to Revolution, which was still liquid at the time, and was like, every generation has their movie. Relativity. He was like, every generation has their movie. I want toativity. Relativity, yeah, sorry. He was like, every generation has their movie. I want to make American Graffiti for the 80s.

So that was his pitch. It was originally shot as Kids in America, and it sat on the shelf for four or five years, and every time they pushed it back a year, they changed the title to a different song from the 80s. And the fact that it's set in the 80s is completely irrelevant to the plot of the film. He was like, I want to make American Graffiti if it wasn't about what was happening or about's set in the 80s is completely irrelevant to the plot of the film.

He was like, I want to make American Graffiti if it wasn't about what was happening or about to change in the culture. And it's just a comedy about a guy pretending that he's rich to get the hot girl. And he works at Suncoast. Yes. He's a Suncoast guy who pretends

that he works at Morgan Stanley. And then Demetri Martin's actually a Morgan Stanley guy. I remember thinking Demetri Martin's good in that movie. I think he's really good in that movie. I think he's really good in that movie. I think he's actually really funny in that movie, playing an asshole. And time. Can you name the tagline of the film?

Take Me Home Tonight? Best. Night. Jesus Christ. Ever. And then Chris Pratt and Anna Faris got married because they met on the set of that movie. Right.

The other crazy thing with that movie... That all worked out. Yes, for everyone. The other crazy thing with that movie that all worked out yes for everyone the other crazy thing with that movie was they edited the trailers together to make it look like Anna Faris was

his best friend character oh who you're like oh he's she's the one that he's gonna ultimately end up with not the hot popular girl

Teresa Palmer and then the movie starts and they're siblings and they had pointedly deceptively cut the trailers to make it look like I can't believe you're gonna marry this jerk right trailers to make it look like I can't believe you're going to marry this jerk.

Right, right, right. Like it's like you don't really love him. That's weird. Ben looks annoyed that you've exceeded the minute. We're not talking about the movie anymore.

The other thing is The other thing is that he announced on Kiss FM Toe for Grace that 1% of the film's box office would be donated

to someone's like who had just suffered a severe car injury so it's like seven dollars i don't remember where i heard this a lot i guess i don't remember where i heard this joke but i remember when the movie came out some website was like uh take me home tonight fails to make any money at the box office which i whoever came up with that i thought was incredibly funny uh but around this point in the, uh,

in the taking Woodstock, I wrote two things. Let's run through your notes. You probably have better attention. I just was writing down notes because I kept realizing like 15 minutes had passed and I hadn't made a single thought. Yeah. And I wrote down,

I wrote down three things. Town is turning on him. Then I wrote quote, what is an Ang Lee movie? Why would he make this? And then I wrote, occasional Hulk-esque split screen, which I crossed out and wrote from the doc.

I was like, oh, that's interesting. The first time it happened, I thought it was a Hulk thing, too. I was like, oh, that's cool. He's into that. And then I was like, oh, no, right. This is from the Woodstock movie. I will say it is weird

and that's one of those movies that just kind of happens where it's not like I'm sitting there going like, God, what the fuck is going on here? You're just like, this is still not a movie I'm sitting there going like, God, what the fuck is going on here? You're just like, this is still not a movie. But you're just like, I guess,

like when it does switch, you're like, okay. It's two hours of I guess. I'm not mad. Right. There's one moment I really like in the film,

which is, I think is the long motorcycle sequence of the cop trying to take him closer to the concert. I like that too. I liked it more when it was in Weekend. It is

his total rip off of Weekend. But I think it's pretty well done. This should have had a scene though where Demetri Martin eats a sandwich and then like a voiceover talks about Marxism for 10 minutes. I really wanted to take the Weekend thing all the way. I felt like as much as I enjoyed that moment, that was like

the first of several times that I was like this motorcade is their only set piece in this movie right this is where all the money went the only thing they could do

with their money was rent 200 antique cars and then just string them out on the road it's just there's so many people in this movie like so many

like fucking bodies who are in it and you're just like Katherine Watterson's in it right this must have just been like two months of all these people

right there's one of many people in this movie who I'm like, Oh, I know that person. I didn't know they were in this movie that I've never seen. I genuinely had no idea she was in it. And she's in it for like two minutes.

But then when I saw her, I was like, Oh, I guess I kind of remember seeing this on her IMDb at some point. I mean, it's a real movie that came out. Yeah. There are a lot of people who like are in this before like four or five years

before they start to connect. And there are a lot of people like, Emile Hirsch is doing this like essentially right after Speed Racer. So I think they thought like, oh man, this is going to be like getting Top Gun,

Tom Cruise. And Milk, and he had just been Oscar, no, but he'd been into the wild, so he'd been like critically awarded. Two massive years. Yeah.

And then this is the beginning of him sort of going off the rails. But again, you get the sense that it was like oh supporting Roland and Ang Lee this could be big this could be it for sure yeah no and he's playing a Vietnam vet so maybe it's like right a very tortured or

interesting performance. Do you remember the scene about according to my notes 45 minutes in after the hippies show up when the mob tries to rub them down for money and one of the guys is the editor from House of Cards then there's two minutes of Henry Goodman like wailing on them with a bat but not hitting to rub them down for money. One of the guys is the editor from House of Cards. Then there's two minutes of Henry Goodman like wailing on them with a bat, but not hitting them.

Like you just are swinging wildly. It just becomes like, you know, punch drunk love for a minute where he's just smashing stuff. Right. And that's the completion of that earlier scene with his sister where she was like, what about that money the mob owes you?

This fucking movie. And I was like, the mob owes him? For decorating something? Come on. And he's like, yeah, it's not really the money the mob owes you and i was like the mob owes him for decorating something and he's like that's not really the way the mob works when they're paying you for decorating their this is right and he says it like a joke and you're like that's that's not a i don't care yeah it's not a thing but there is a scene in this movie where the mob and that's like one of dozens of things that you're like this probably happened right it's probably in this guy's book doesn't mean it's interesting

and then they were just like well we got to get that part in there where like the mob shows up and we got to get that part in there where there's like this guy who was in drag who was the security guard right it's that concept of like what a crazy soup this is with like you couldn't believe all the stuff that was happening you were at in the backdrop of Woodstock the

famous concert with Sean playing if you were at a bar with this real guy I just think would've been great if the only music they did was Sean And in the backdrop of Woodstock, the famous concert with Sha Na Na playing. If you were at a bar with this real guy. I just think it would have been great if the only music they did was Sha Na Na. I get it. You love Sha Na Na. Get a job. I refuse. I'm on workman's comp, my friend.

Filed the paperwork yesterday. I'm broken. Thank you. If you were at a bar or like a cocktail party and this guy over drinks told you this story for like 15 minutes, you'd be like,

that's crazy. You were at the center of all this, all these characters. If you were telling it just in anecdotal form, if you read a review of the book or a synopsis of the book, you'd be like,

oh shit, we should option this. And I feel like this is one of those things where like someone optioned it. Someone should have just stopped them and been like, yeah, okay, but Demetri Martin, you have to imagine him at the center of it

and they're like oh not it he's popping this sounds great I'm not even saying that I'm saying I can imagine someone seeing the announcement of this book being released going like that sounds like a fucking movie buying the rights then actually reading the book and going oh there's no story here and it feels like

it never would have been made into a movie unless someone at Ang Lee's power was like, I think I can do this. I'd like to do a comedy. Which feels like him kind of going, I'd like to do a lighter thing, maybe. And this somehow landing on his sphere. I did see some Seamus quote where he's like,

we had done four really dark, sad movies in a row. We wanted to lighten it up. Around this time, I mean, you're really blowing through the plot, but you're right. There's nothing. There's nothing, but like, there's nothing.

His family's business seems to be failing. Right. They have this hotel. There's the scene at the bank where the bankers serve alternately.

Like, you guys are so annoying. You owe us so much money and like, I'm sorry, I'm trying to help. Like, there's that.

They accuse him of anti-Semitism. The hotel should close. That's the other thing. They play that card a lot. And this hotel should close. When the health inspector shows up and they're like,

can you believe this health inspector? I'm like, you poured bleach in the pool. You're a criminal. You don't change the sheets. You're a maniac. I do like in the first scene

when the guy's complaining. The guy from Frasier, the hoity-toity Englishman. I like any sign gag in a thing. No towels. He points to the $ity-toity Englishman. I like any sign gag in a thing. No towels. There was no towel. At that point, 90 seconds in, I was like,

this is funny. Imelda's breaking balls. Imelda's got a sign gag. This movie has a lot of promise. You're thinking there's going to be more signs. There'll be additional signs. Dimitri should have been doing the sign gag. He should have been making a graph of the signs. What if he was like,

Ang, I love this character. I just have one thing. Can there be a sign gag where she points to something that comments on what's happening? Here's the weird thing. On one hand, this opening sequence is maybe the most purely entertaining part of the movie, right?

There's like a little comedic juice and a little like fucking spice in it comedic jewess yeah there's a tiny comedic jewess in the scene oh sure yeah yeah okay melda's tiny yes yeah um but on the other hand it kind of breaks the movie because after that point you're like i don't care if this fucking place stays open they're assholes and the business is bad yeah but, but I might be all the way in on a hotel movie. Right. But it doesn't even really, because like I said,

it kind of breaks the movie that Groff just buys out the hotel. Yes. Because then there's no worry about like making the hotel nice. They make it worse. And then also the final twist that she had the money anyway.

She had the money anyway. So it's like, A, they don't deserve the windfall. Subtly, like, he just sees her with a pile of money, but I'm thinking like, oh, is that just the money Groff gave them? Right.

And it's like, no, she had more money. They play it okay in terms of what it is. I mean, I thought she was dead. I thought she was dead. She choked on money. No, because she swam in the bleach pool. We'll get to the iconic Imelda Staunton tripping on Pop Brownie scene

when we get there. Four! That was half the trailer in my memory right and the line that i remember i just feel like there was a point like where he kind of you know is like i'm going to bring this together and then everything kind of seems to be working out there's well we haven't talked about why i brought in all this chocolate milk for everybody oh we've been drinking chocolate milk the whole time because essentially like it's revealed that the reason woodstock happened is because of chocolate milk. Yes. Right.

So I brought chocolate milk for everybody. Dimitri was originally going to offer like his parents land which is like a fucking swamp land. And there is a good gag where a guy starts walking out into it and then falls into a puddle and disappears. He does some really good comic flailing. Which I thought was actually very funny. It is insane. Yeah that was

kind of funny. That this movie though has like maybe four jokes in total, and that's one of them. And it's good, and then they're like, we can't have the concert here. This is a swamp. And then they think, what about Jim's dad? But they're drinking chocolate milk while they're sick. Yeah, Jim's dad is next door, and he's organizing the Naked Mile. He's reading the Book of Love. And everyone is like, this is good chocolate

milk. Yeah. And they say, well, they make it next door with these great, like, you know, upstate cows and this great upstate grass. As long as you clean up and pay me $5,000000 and then it's like, okay, here's the thing. Great. The whole movie has no conflict now. Then he pulls out and then they just resolve it. Well, what's interesting-

Then he just upcharges them. Right. What's interesting about that is they save $5,000 and then Demetri Martin goes home with his bag of cash and he shows his parents. He's like, we're good. Yeah. And then Eugene Levy calls and he's like i just saw a thing about this concert you're hosting yeah and at that point i was like where yeah well

like where is this guy getting his cold spring press yeah i just checked twitter like he's just but at that point i was like oh that's weird they kind of skipped over this important detail about how the word is getting out that woodstock has changed locations. To be clear, he's asking them for half a million dollars. 75 grand then is like $500,000. Yeah. It's like a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Can we talk about, let's not bury the lead here.

Alex Ross Disney brought the three of us, Horizon Organic, chocolate low-fat milk, a gentleman's drink. You're burying the lead to whatever joke this is. Comes in with his high class, high thread count, soylent chocolate milk. Now, I feel really bad about this. Modernist bottle. Because I roasted Alex for this, and then I realized he did go to the effort of buying a nice chocolate milk. No, that's good stuff.

Like I said, I didn't bring you who. The point is, I couldn't find the silk chocolate milk that I like, and've never had soylent this is undrinkable i've consumed it's bad and i'm not going to finish it's undrinkable but that bottle with the sort of brown and then white you know the the uh the two-tone looks very nice can we spend more time describing what the i want to talk about the horizon i want to talk about the horizon box because it has a fact about cows did you say the plot or the box of milk? No, the box of milk. I don't know about your cow fact, but mine says, did you know cows can't walk downstairs

because their knees don't bend that way? Cows don't walk downstairs anyway. Yeah. Why would a cow walk down the stairs? What if it says, did you know? This is a cool fact too. Horizon also makes mac and cheese. Yeah, I know.

I was wondering why all those boxes have mac and cheese on the back it's like it's recommending like make it out of chocolate i'll read this now i did um i did text uh my friend adam pally who's in this movie i said any stories you can have adam pally come on blank check and i and i said um uh how much chocolate milk did you drink and is it as good as they say it is in the movie? He said, so much that I can't really think about chocolate milk without Fleming up in the back of my throat. Yes, it was delicious up there. And this is practically 10 years ago.

So the chocolate milk, I guess, was legit. But the point is, if not for the chocolate milk, Demetri Martin wouldn't have known to move Woodstock to Max Yeager's farm. And that's where Woodstock happened, as we all know, from this movie. Without question, the two most difficult parts of being an actor are uh eating stuff multiple takes just consuming any food or

beverage for multiple takes and pretending like the weather is different than what it actually is oh i never thought about that but those are always the two things that fucking get you um but it looks disgusting to drink that much chocolate milk but they're the little school lunch size containers they're not the big the big boys that i brought in still looks disgusting these are pretty they're they're tall ones these are they're small and they're they're they're square this is a weird dimitri performance thing that i want to discuss okay uh is the fact that he just stares blankly at everyone like he's a living doll in every single scene essentially this is the larger discussion I want to have around that, okay?

All right, sure. It's also something about his hair hanging over his head. You know, like he has the... He looks like a toy. Correct. Yeah. He looks like a doll. Yeah.

Bespoke collectible. Right. The informant, the Soderbergh movie, everyone in the cast other than Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, and Melanie Alinsky is a comedian.

You got Joel McHale and Paul F. Tompkins. Like Scott adds it Tom Papa and like the Smothers Brothers are in it. Sure. It's like weirdly stacked

with comedians from like different time periods. And I remember some interview where they said like why did you put Same year as this movie. Yes. They said why did you put so many comedians from like different time periods. And I remember some interview where they said like, why did you put- Same year as this movie. Yes. They said, why did you put so many comedians in the movie?

And he said, with material like this, where you want these sort of dry characters- Heightened. To have some life to them, I think if you have a comedian and you tell them to play it straight, it's still going to make it a little funnier than if you have a serious actor

and tell them to make it a little funny so it isn't boring. And that was his whole notion. And all the comedians in that movie are playing it pretty straight other than maybe Mikhail, who's playing more of the exasperated guy. But like, Tommy Smothers plays like a judge. But it does give the... The host of The Marriage Ref was in that one too. Tom Papa, I already cited him.

I just wanted to mention The Marriage Ref. Funny, five ref points. But it does give the movie a certain particular energy. And you kind of feel like that was maybe the thinking here where it's like, oh, well, this character isn't necessarily funny. If we cast a dramatic actor, it might be kind of dull. If we cast a comedian, he'll bring a certain life to it just by having that comedic energy.

And it feels like Demetri Martin perversely was like, I want to show how much of a serious actor I am by not even attempting to be funny. Because there are moments in this film where he has what is clearly written to be vaguely a laugh line. Sure. And he completely plays against any comedic rhythm. But he was such a dead, he's deadpan anyway. He is deadpan AF.

He wasn't like a goofy comic. Agreed. goofy comic. Agreed, but when you watch his stand-up where he's playing things pretty straight and kind of blank like that, he still does have an understanding of timing and inflection to be able to understand what will activate a laugh. Whereas in this movie there are lines he has with his sister where it's like

he's playing them way too heavy. You're really into that scene. That scene is so... You're describing that scene like when I would read the first 40 pages of a book and then have to give a book report on it. Yeah. And all of my thoughts are— Everything hinges on this moment. No, because that scene feels like when they're trying to set up the movie and then abandon the rest of it.

Another weird example of that is Jeffrey Dean Morgan who comes in— I mean, that stuff is insane. Insane! You're waiting for it to— Pay off in any way. In any way. He's like, oh, fine, I'll second the notion to have this thing. And not pay off as a plot device, but just like, what's his function

in this movie? He was, yeah, he was some guy in the book and they needed to cast the character. And in the opening scene,

they're like, we knew you only came here to the commerce meeting for your own reasons. It's like, okay, so they're setting up the character type.

And he's like, I said I would come if we stopped talking about these crazy schemes and ideas. And then they just do and then he's angry. Like,

this is the thing, it's like, Woodstock did happen. Right. Like, there's only so much that's going to get in the way. Yeah.

You're saying that there's no, I mean, there's no, right, they're mining the book and they're like, oh, there was a city council meeting

that was contentious. They're like, all right, we're putting it in. Like, I think they're just sort of looking. that's the Titanic argument.

I mean, it's like, we know how it's going to end up. What? The Titanic sank. It was a failure. What you don't know is that there was this theater troupe living in the barn.

And they never factor into the plot in any way. They don't have anything to do with Woodstock, except they may have performed somewhere. Possibly. At this point, so this is like halfway through the movie, at which point we're just bullshitting because literally nothing is happening. But at this point I was like, oh, so this movie's not about this at all.

There's two things that's not happening. One, I have no idea how far apart these two places are from each other. His hotel and the farm. You mentioned the weekend motorcycle thing. That's late. But at that point he's like, it'll take you all afternoon to walk there. Let me give you a ride. But then every other point in the movie he just

walks between the two points. Correct. Implying it does not take all afternoon. But the concert doesn't start until the last 30 minutes of the movie? I think so. It's actually kind of unclear when the two points. Correct. Implying it does not take all afternoon. But the concert doesn't start until the last 30 minutes of the movie? I'd say so. It's actually kind of unclear when the concert begins. At some point, you just start hearing the music.

Right. And there's a fence, Wilson-esque, as you mentioned. Woodstock and Wilson are on the other side of. And the other thing is, you would expect there to be

three days to show, two days to show. Something that you're just like, the stakes are, and there's nothing like that because the movie's not about this at all. No, it's one of the least propulsive movies ever made. Alex, have you ever thought of doing a typewriter like this?

Only if it said Langley, Virginia. That's the only thing that should be, should appear via typewriter. Surveillance day nine. Also, it'd have to have some Crichton ask exact time. Right, right, right.

Typewriter. Oh, 4 a.m. 4 a.m. Right, right, right. That,

I mean, otherwise don't, don't use it. There's like a guy, a guy in a snap rim hat. Yeah. Don't, don't use the device if you're not going to do that.

Right. But I was like, at this point, like the movie's half over and you're just like, I wrote down here, concert seems to have begun. And like, that's it.

It's just at some point, I guess. Oh, it started. Yeah yeah you're like oh my god and also at this point the jonathan groff laying carrot he hasn't been the movie in like 40 minutes he just has those early scenes where he's paying for it and then there's that scene where dimitri drops in on the office where they're like organizing the whole thing that's where pally and Catherine are right yeah where Pally is and like um uh which is a screen for no discernible reason whatsoever

and Groff seems pretty stressed out yeah and Dimitri's kind of just a fly in the ointment and then he leaves and you're kind of like but what was going on in there and the movie's like I don't know it doesn't matter and then there's the swastika thing that you mentioned Jewish family gets hate crime because no one wants the hippies in the town,

which I totally relate to. Right. This is the most empathetic part of the movie to me. Because famously, the whole reason they did Woodstock was because Bob Dylan lived in Woodstock and they were like, surely if we do a concert next door, he'll show up.

And instead, Bob Dylan was like, I hate hippies and all the hippies are here now. Fuck you. Like, I'm not doing your dumb concert. I'm like going toain to you know yell at people on stage right and um i think you're thinking of sam kinnison i think you're confusing them again mark mayer did work the door at woodstock also david david's retired so please don't mention where he went and uh shut up and um uh and then

you've got live schreiber drops in where he's like, I'm going to be the bodyguard. But I also won't ever go to the concert. I'll just be the bodyguard for the hotel. Also, I was in Korea. Here's a picture of me and I am wearing drag and I have a gun in here in my underpants. I murdered a guy. I'm a grandfather. JK, except not JK about the last thing.

He reads a Wikipedia entry and you can just feel the movie being unbelievable. Can you believe it? And then that's it it that's what the whole movie is like i feel like this movie is sort of like it's like a 3d movie where magic eye movie where like you know because think about the future of like i just did vr recently so it's like it's like it's like a v oh man i lost my mind because i had i was a mushroom so that's the whole we have to talk about acid too because you're probably well have you done acid no i have no yeah you're probably the only person here who's done and on my wife during the paul dano sequence

was like i want this must be what it's like yeah what i've always been told is it's like you focus on like a table leg and you're like isn't it crazy how it makes like a shape here i did kind of like that aspect of that sequence that it's him really honing in on specific parts of the art in their van that is cool

that felt kind of kind of visually but also like I said it feels like it was added it does way later but my point is

I just wanted to say this is like using that technology where the main plot of a movie is happening and then you are bored and you walk away from it and you go somewhere else of a movie is happening, and then you are bored, and you walk away from it,

and you go somewhere else. So this movie is like a side mission in Grand Theft Auto. Where you're like, I'm just going to drive a taxi for a while. And they just built this because they're like, if any asshole wanders over here, we got to have something happening. So at this point, there's Nazis.

There's anti-Semites. At this point, I don't know. You're saying this movie is about like NPCs in a Woodstock game that they didn't spend a lot of time building out this movie is kind of like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead if Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

had never met Helmholtz like it's like never heard of it you just like go to the merchant and you're like what do you have and he's like here are my wares and you're like what do you have and he's like here are my wares and you're like how are you doing he's like here are my wares i'm like that's it that's all they did for him like right yeah yeah the leo schreiber and then like at this point fogler's out of at this point fogler's out of the movie out no more lines schreiber's taking over at this point i wrote down the following disconnected notes dano shows up

failed nashville vibe trip sequence 40 minutes question mark and then i wrote 60s peace and love oh hello wow in reference to definitely one of my favorite lines in oh hello right where they're just doing this insane 60s pastiche about meeting at the yard meeting at the campus of columbia and this movie feels like 60s piece and love, oh hello, minus any music. The three. Sort of a vague guitar feedback score. Yeah. Very un-Elfman score. Yeah. A weirdly, completely non-Elfman sounding score.

Which is cool. The three days of the festival are, what, the first day is the day where he ends up in the van with Paul Dano and Kelly Gardner, right? I guess so. I feel like that's got to be the second day because the whole thing is he hasn't gone over yet. Right. If it was day one, it wouldn't be that interesting.

Oh, so he only goes over twice in the second day. to be the second day because the whole thing is he hasn't gone over yet. If it was day one, it wouldn't be that interesting. So he only goes over twice in the second day. That's the second day. The third day is when he just talks to Mamie Gummer for a little while. And they're just like, remember how there was the electricity thing? Yeah. She's like, people can't even go on right now. Yeah. Yeah, it's a bummer.

And he's like, oh, I guess I'll go back home. Then his dad's like, thank you for giving me life. He looks at an empty lawn and says, beautiful, while Jonathan groff gets in a helicopter and the movie fucking ends during the thank you for giving me life part uh anna was like is this about the holocaust like is that what he's talking about possibly because they're very clearly meant to have fled right you know because she talks about um russia like she has a whole rant like she says i walked here from russia tease off the movie practically there's also the lsd scene with the parents we should they go to the bank to get the loan right remember they they accuse i don't think they're getting a loan they are in arrears oh yes correct it's like the bank

is like you know it's like five grand where's the money they accuse him of anti-semitism he's like anti-semitism these are the cat skills what are you talking about anti-semitism i am a nazi propaganda cartoon like look at me i am a rotund jewish banker yeah what are you talking right and it's like kind of like marginally funny and then the rest of the movie they're up against anti-semitism right and then the movie's trying to set the concept that she's like look at how ridiculous she is he's trying to use anti-semitism as an argument and then they're getting swastikas on and not only are they getting do they get a swastika, the perpetrators are across the street

leering at them, and Demetri Martin's like, they'll just do it again if we paint over it. And then he says, paint over it before mom sees it. Right. But also, when he goes into the diner to ask for the regular, and all of them yell at him, they're like, we know we shouldn't have let you Jews into this town. It's a lot. Yeah. It does feel like,

again, like, well, that's part of the story so we have to get that aspect and i'll i'll listen i'll like i'd be in for a movie about like the jewish community and the cat skills and like how that developed over time or like you know movies within this movie that you would like to watch right but this movie feels a weird like obligation to represent everything that happened whether or not it's interesting i also just want to point out and even though we will we can go back but the worst worst worst thing is that the movie ends with a teaser for altamont which is like bizarre like it's like worse than the post it's the rolling water game and it's gonna be cool nothing's gonna

go wrong like no one's gonna get murdered right, I've hired these great guys to do security. It's such a weird thing. Have you heard of them? They're supposed to be angels. That is the last line in the movie, though. He's like, it's going to be a dream. That's the last line. There is no other line after he sets up Altamont.

It is exactly like the post. There's got to be other examples of something like that where something ends. It's like the 9-11 movie with Robert Pattinson. My absolute favorite. Remember me, right? My absolute favorite is at the end of fast five which has now been set up as a prequel to tokyo drift right uh it's six that's the final one before tokyo drift right but it's at the end of five yeah when han's like maybe we should go to they're riding off in the car and

gal gadot goes so what are you thinking of doing now that you got all the money and he goes i'm hearing they're doing some pretty crazy shit in Tokyo and the thought is oh he's gonna die in between movies and then he shows up at the beginning at 6 and they go

what happened in Tokyo he went out and I'll go there later I'll get there I think the line is literally I'll get there

eventually they're saying we'll figure out our own chronology when we feel like it I'm now just thinking about Ang Lee making Taking Altamont.

And again, no one, you don't see the concert. That would have been the intention somehow. Right. And then Mamie Gummer at the end is like, you got stabbed. She still has the same hat on. She hasn't taken it off in the intervening six months. And like Paul Dano is like now in the Hells Angels. I don't know.

Right. But the whole movie is just Demetri Martin having food poisoning while the whole concert's happening. Yeah. It's him balancing his taxes. Certainly that was one of the most egregious examples in this movie of just like, just so you all know,

this happened. Right. Here's this thing, like we're going to mention Wavy Gravy and we're going to mention all this other dumb shit everyone knows happened.

Right. We're not going to have any of it. I wrote down here, 90 minutes in, still no needle drop. There has not been like, I was really excited for, you know

all the crappy songs that we've heard a million times but the only song they play is the song from the volkswagen commercial they play a red telephone in the in the van tripping sequence the love song which is a great song that is not overused but it's not really part of that concert it's a weird choice should we talk about lsd yeah do we care about the lsd sequence i mean i'm just curious because it's excruciatingly on fun to watch yeah oh because it involves characters that you've never seen before and you're certain you will never see again in the movie right they're like the steve's on character and lean on pete where it's like you know in that where they're like let's just introduce like a meth head and they're like let's just introduce acid people they live in a car he's gonna go in the car he'll leave the car

they won't see them outside of the car. Are you from here? He's like, yeah, I'm from here. Yeah. Where are you from? And they're like,

California, Texas, Oregon. And he goes, you're from everywhere. And she's like, we're from everywhere. And it's just like,

I hate this. I hate this shit. You're from everywhere too. He goes, no, I'm from here. And they go, yeah,

you're really from here. Wow. Anti-Semitism. Yeah. You dirty Jew. Okay. Ben's LSD corner. of go yeah you're really from here wow anti-semitism yeah you dirty jew okay ben's lsd corner i'm gonna pee while you do your lsd you're gonna miss it you'll never understand so the effects in the movie are kind of close to what really it sort of feels like it's very melty yeah and yeah the light and that focused in on certain things yeah i do like that when they're

changing coverage from like Dimitri's perspective of the other characters to sort of like God's eye views that the color palette changes. Oh yeah. That when it's like just the establishing shots, it's like him in darkness. And whenever it goes to him, everyone else is like bathed in sunlight. But a lot of that looked, as with this little part of the sequence,

like there was like all the exterior, like they are now at where the concert is stuff looked really poorly green screen. Oh, it's very green screen. It's hugely green screen. The end sequence with them, with Jonathan Groff. Cleaning up the trash. Yeah. You just look at like hair because hair is always the giveaway in green screen things.

I thought you meant the movie hair with all the. Oh yeah. You look at hair. At this point, you just want to put on hair and keep grooving. A hundred percent. But anytime they're in front of the larger actual concert area, even if it's in the background, it is so poorly green screen. Okay, so that felt like a decent visual approximation.

Yeah, it was okay, but... Do you think Aang has tripped balls? Did it feel specific enough that he would have to get it from experience? Or do you think he just read books and tried to approximate it? I think that he is a big Sid head. For sure. Definitely. Because I could just kind of tell

like his vibe. Yeah, definitely. He definitely seems like that kind of guy. Yeah. Decided that Ang Lee is like an acid guy. Yeah. Decided that Ang Lee likes the trip. He's like an acid guy.

Like every week. But I did a lot of acid. Uh-huh. How much is a lot? I genuinely want to know. Over 50 times. That's a lot of time. I guess what?

Over what period of years? Yeah, like how often? I did it last weekend. What's the... It's a dance party on Sunday. What's the dance party on Sunday? What's the closest you would space two trips together though?

Like if you do it, you're not like, I'm going to do that again tomorrow. It's good to take a week off. Okay. It's nice to have a meal in between. Yeah, right. Yeah.

But I only drink some bottled water. I've had a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. That sequence does work for you. Yeah. That checks out. Okay. Yeah.

That's kind of cool. Yeah. Because it's really boring to watch if you're just watching it when you're sitting on your couch. But that's the thing. It's when you're doing it, everything is heightened. You're like, oh my God, this is so amazing. And you're literally just like moving something across the table. Well, watching people be stoned is almost always uncompelling.

It's excruciating. There is nothing less interesting than seeing that. When people are drunk, they might tell you their secrets, but when people are stoned, they'll act like they're telling you their secrets, but they'll just be like, I really like you.

You're really, really hot. They'll just kind of touch you. Speaking of getting stoned and telling secrets, how does the scene where the parents trip check out for you? Because then after he comes back from that- They're only on pot brownies, right? They're eating pot brownies.

Yeah, okay. And then they pass out they're dancing around and they dig up the money from their floorboards he tucks them into i mean we're like at the end of the movie now we've like nothing has happened the concert has started and he oh well you mentioned earlier he like goes on tv for some reason right he does a press conference and then they're like you should do that beforehand they're like you should do that you're good at public relations you look good in a suit and he's all nervous this is such a perfect example of it feeling like dimitri martin perversely wants to show how much of a serious actor he could be right because it's like the setup for the scene is you got stoned right before having to speak on cameras and he's straying away from any comedic

angle on the thing he just says free a lot yeah yeah he's like he away from any comedic angle on the thing. He just says free a lot. Yeah. He just looks nervous. It's about freedom. It's going to be fun. And then it cuts to all these other people showing up and they're like, did you hear? The concert's free.

But that scene's a gimme. I'm no fan of guy gets stoned and then has to hold it together scenes in general. Come on, have some fun here. You have any background in comedy, it's like this is the part where you get to let loose and at least try some shit. Yeah, I forgot during the scene

that he was supposed to be, that he was supposed to be stoned in some capacity. But that happens. Other than that, I feel like there are no other scenes in the movie. He just kind of walks

back and forth between these two destinations that could be like next door. They could be three miles apart. We don't know. I'm going to put it around one and a half miles in between those two.

You know what? It's like a dad movie. Well, totally. It's a bunch of the last kind of those things where they'd be like, man, we used to be cool. And then two years later, something in between those two you know what it's like a dad movie well totally but the dad kind of those things where they'd be like man we used to be cool and then two years later they're just like people our age are finding love for the second time but but the problem is that also like your dad would want to see the music right like we read it and we'd be like where's shana where are they that's what's amazing you're really griffing this bit. I mean, this is a griff level commitment.

I'm not complaining. I'm proud of you. I truly didn't know until this movie was almost over that like, imagine how disappointing you would be if you'd be like, you want to go see the Woodstock movie? Yeah, we used to love that stuff. And then you're just like, what's going on here? The problem is like us as Ang Lee fans,

we read like, and he doesn't show the concert. We're like, that's kind of cool. Sounds like my kind of movie. But the only people who would enjoy this movie are the people who adore Woodstock and the mythology of it so much, and they would be so frustrated by not getting to see Shana. Because it's not even like the Michael Lang planning

Woodstock movie. It's like, what about the guy who ran the hotel down the road? And it's like, well, that's, I guess, the least interesting conceivable take on a culturally significant event imaginable. Think of anything else that was relevant, and think of that version of it where it's like Steve Jobs's neighbor.

Right. Not even a lot of computers. It's just like, these are the people that like run the restaurant down the street from where Apple is. And then Apple people come in and they're like that computers we're going to make it. And they're talking about it.

And then like, you can kind of look over the fence and see that they're building the cube. See, that's what I was going to say. I like the Steve Jobs' neighbor thing because it means that it's a guy just going to work every day and every time he pulls the car in or out of the garage he kind of maybe sees what they're doing

for a second and the rest of the movie is just him being really in a macrame. And then like one Steve Jobs comes over for a barbecue and then they're like, what are you working on? Something big. Wait, what if you're tucked in your shirt? What? It's your jeans.

It's cold out here. Well, why don't you borrow my black turtleneck? The other thing we're not mentioning is this sort of gay awakening. Kind of. But you kind of have the impression he's already a little more. It's not like he is repressed. He has a phone call with someone who seems like an ex-boyfriend at the beginning of the film. He doesn't seem out to his parents,

but it also doesn't seem that he's in denial necessarily or actively hiding it. And then he has this crush on Paul. Handsome man named Paul. They sleep together and it's cut past. But then also when they make out, he looks back to see if his father's still there. Right, and he's not.

Yeah, it's glossed over like everything. I think this movie could have been cool if it was like three hours long and tripled its commitment to its concept. Yeah. I also think like it feels like, especially coming after Brokeback Mountain, his notion was, let's make a movie where the character's gay and it's not about that at all and I can just sort of normalize it. But then they pay so little mind to it that it feels almost like a 1940s studio movie

where they're trying to code him as gay without actually saying that he's gay. Save for like The Kiss. It's like they're trying to not even acknowledge it really. But I do want to point out that this film was in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It won, right? Yeah, it won.

It won the Palm Dog. But it was also nominated for four four aarp movies for grown-up grown-up awards that's one of the few facts on the wikipedia page is that it lost best picture at the aarp movies you mean it lost best grown-up love story that award show definitely has like a best remember that time movie right can you give me the nominees in the category of best grown-up love story yeah by the way who are the grown-ups in love the father at the end going because i love her yeah so here are the nominees emelda staunton and henry goodman in taking what they list the nominees as the couple

correct she hears that all right here it's gonna it gets wild helen mirren and christopher plumber in the last station which is mostly just like tolstoy yelling at his wife. I remember Marsha Gay Harden and Daniel Stern in whip it. I remember being sweet. They're both good. That movie is just like the parents in a movie. That's not about them. Bingo. Well,

but then it's getting, it's going to get complicated because it's complicated is nominated and Meryl Streep and Malik Baldwin are nominated. So they know it's a duo nominated. They ignore Steve Martin, who's the one she actually ends up with in the movie. They are. duo nominated. They ignore Steve Martin. Who's the one she actually ends up with in the movie? They uncomplicate it. We'll get to it.

It's complicated later. And then Julie and Julia wins for Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci, which is a fairly nice love story. They fuck in that movie. Well, the stuff with the parents in this movie is, I guess, touching. But that's the other end of the movie is, I guess, touching, but you know, that's the other end of the movie is that they do the pop brownies.

They wake up. Imelda Staunton seems dead, but she's actually like put $90,000 worth of cash in the floorboards. Yes. That she has been hoarding while Demetri Martin's been like sinking all his life savings into this shithole hotel that should be like condemned. And they made $5,000 and she has $90. Right. And then he's just like. And then he's like, I'm so

mad at you about this. And the movie ends with him being like, I might leave. Right. And Jonathan Groff being like, check out Altamont. Then he goes to the field. It's all over. It's all muddy. Everyone's picking up garbage. Mamie Gummer is sort of like, she references the, you know, the

Maharishi or whoever it was who spoke. And Mamie Gummer says, has a, she references the Maharishi or whoever it was who spoke. Mamie Gummer says has a taste for theatrics, likes you. Flips over a card that says Altamont. He also says, he's like, I'm sure we'll all end up- Give me a point! He says, I'm sure we'll all end up suing each other, which is like, well, I guess that probably happened or else they wouldn't have put that dumb line in. The other thing I wrote down is recently... The Blu-ray has an audio commentary

with Ang Lee and James Seamus. I kind of want to listen to it. So they stand by it. They're not like, we don't want to talk about it. What do you think? They're just like, this is boring. What if the commentary track is them just in gales of laughter for two hours? They think it's the funniest movie ever made. I was just saying, it's just them counting money.

It's him doing a skit with his two Oscars where they're characters that talk to each other. Brokey and pie. Yeah, one pie. His two golden lions as well. I did one thing that a couple weeks ago, my wife and I were at an outdoor

thing and she refused to use a portal potty. Real humble brag. Fair question. She's not going to walk to a restaurant. Fair refusal. just and while she was in the restaurant i was looking at the port-a-potties and i was like have has this technology ever changed and i saw in this movie no it has not no why is that they've changed point why is it that you know to use the seinfeld bit you can put a man on the moon but at no point have they done anything to the port-a-potty since 1969 because i used a port-a-potty like set up for a complaint. It never will be. Yeah. Until we put like a man on Mars or

whatever. I used to port-a-potty last week and I had the very thought where I'm like, oh yeah, no, just still just a hole like that. That's the idea of pooping in a hole. It just goes there. The way they show them in here, you're like, that's just the same thing. Right. Yeah. But then that's the end of the movie and she has all the money and he leaves and you're left with this empty feeling about what you did for

two hours. And most importantly, literally not empty feeling about what you did for two hours. And most importantly, literally not one supporting character comes back in the movie for a curtain call except for this Altamont Stanger. And Mamie Gummer. Right. No, you're right. Emile Hirsch, Dan Fogler, Liev Schreiber.

Yeah, you don't see like Emile Hirsch with his arm around Dan Fogler being like, you really helped me through all that Vietnam shit. You don't see Eugene Levy being like, what on earth did you do to my farm? Right. That's true. He could have that voice. That's a guy you want resolution being like, what on earth did you do to my farm? That's true. He could have that voice.

That's a guy you want resolution. That's so money. How will I make my chocolate milk? You want the Home Alone ending where it's on Demetri Martin's face and you just hear Eugene Levy.

Jesus, marry a Joseph. You kind of feel like this movie would be more interesting if it started at the ending and it was the fallout of Woodstock on this town. Oh, it was like in Meteorist?

Cleaning up Woodstock. Yeah. Honestly, like these people being like taking out the trash at Woodstock. This is got out of hand.out of Woodstock on this town. Oh, it was like in Meteorist? Cleaning up Woodstock. Yeah. Honestly, like these people being like- Taking out the trash at Woodstock. This is got out of hand. You think this movie would be better if it was Dimitri Martin looking out over that field and him going,

probably wondering how I got here. Yes. 100%. Well, let me start earlier. And then it's him in the village of Stonewall and he goes, no, not that early. Not interesting.

And then it's him decorating the mob headquarters and he goes, no, not that not interesting and then it's him decorating the mob headquarters he goes no not that early and then it's him with his mom and he goes okay right here and the mob's just like now listen we at the mob don't pay decorators it's a famous rule it starts with him in the torch of the statue of liberty going uh bonjour that's still my favorite opening that's one of the worst devices in one of the worst movies i think of the 21st century what movie the walk we may do it on this podcast it literally begins with like joseph gordon levitt in a turtleneck with a beret smoking a cigarette doing mime being like oh bonjour i didn't see you there. Please. It's an interesting CGI.

Doing a French, this is a man who speaks French doing like a shitty French English accent. He's doing like PRS Cargo level shit, but it's like a crazy like CGI like rapid fast camera zoom across the Hudson into like the Statue of Liberty torch.

He's standing in the torch and then goes, Oh, hello, bonjour! This is a real movie. Made by a man who won an Oscar. It's like taking a wood stack. Also made by a man who's won a bunch of Oscars. Watching this movie and what I said an hour ago of like, you know, this movie

doesn't make you angry, it just kind of exists. I am now genuinely furious. Are we recording yet? Have we started? Yeah. Let's start the episode. Can I tell my Scorsese Woodstock story? Sure.

Is it Marty who's talking to you? Possibly. This is like the best story I have. And you know, why not in this episode when there's nothing else of interest? Yeah. I have a big overarching theory

I want to propose in relation to Taking Woodstock. So there is one more thing of interest, hopefully. Do you want to throw it out now or do you want to

say it now? No, no, it's going to, it'll be a good kind of conclusion to the discussion of the movie. So this is the best piece of directing I've ever seen.

And when people ask me, like, what's the difference? What do you see? What makes a good director? I tell them this story, which is on the vinyl pilot, which was just crazy exorbitant.

It was like $20 million. Almost the cost of taking Woodstock. Yes. It shot for two months, right? And it was just like an insane thing to be on where I had nothing to do, right? But I was around a lot. That's a long time for not that much money.

Yeah. I think it went way over. The budget they gave him was $20 million to deliver a one-hour episode, and he delivered a two hour I think it ended up costing over 30 a two hour episode

in which Andrew Dice Clay is murdered and he was like I'm having a hard time dealing with this limited budget that was his big thing it was one of the most

expensive pilots ever made and most of that went to you most of that went to me I did my quote at that time was 18 million dollars that was that week of draft day

it was that week of draft day before that Friday morning I locked down one deal where they were like we gotta get him he's popping because you were like time was 18 million dollars that was that week of draft day it was that week of draft day that friday morning i locked down one deal where they were like we got to get him he's popping because you were like i got eight track calling and they're like the vinyl guys like all right fine sorry at the time the show was called rock and roll it was i forgot about that um tom stopper i don't get it there is a scene in which it is Bobby Cannavale's birthday party and the whole staff

is there and his friends are there and his family is there and it's like three overnights at this mansion in Staten Island

right and you have like 20 principal actors maybe even more and you have like over a hundred 200 background all in this mansion

and Scorsese who like likes his seclusion as quiet, they, like, in the living room of the house, built, like, a cardboard fort for him. Like, his, like, video village, because he likes to be totally shut off, was, like, literally cardboard walls duct-taped together with a door and shit so that he had his space.

And he's also, like, super asthmatic, and everyone was, like like smoking on the show. Sure. So most of the time, his first AD communicates. And comes in. And maybe once out of every five takes, Scorsese comes out and says his stuff. Right? And he's a man who like doesn't over direct, says what he needs to say.

But his big thing, which I learned doing this, was like he really likes to give people the freedom. The big thing he wants to do is use the, flex the fact that he's Martin Scorsese to be like, they're not going to shut me down. They're not going to cut me off. Are they going to fire Marty? Right. I'm going to hire good people and I'm going to give them the space to feel like they can't make any mistakes and then just nudge them a little bit to

get options. Cause he likes when surprises and mistakes happen and all that sort of stuff. Right. So the scene is everyone's toasting Bobby Cannavale and Olivia Wilde, who's his wife, gets up and makes this speech about like, you all know that Richie and I went to Woodstock. You sent us there.

What you don't know is what really happened. It was our first weekend away after we had had the kid and we went to the hotel room to check in and we ended up not leaving the bed for the weekend. And so she's like blowing up his spot that he never actually attended Woodstock. He just got caught in a sex rut for three days, right? Sure.

And Ray Romano, who's his like partner at the record label, goes like, you kidding me? All these stories you were telling me, they're all lies you made up. Hey, is Ray here? Right, I mean, I'm here in the Ice Age. But the line he's supposed to say is, Oh, all the stories you told us.

Alvin Lee singing, I'm going home. Get a job. Get a job, Sean. The line, the big thing is, Alvin Lee, I'm going home. Right? And Romano, who I think is a really fucking good actor. Right? And watching him work, it was on this guy's head.

What'd you do? So much respect for. But it was one of those things where sometimes you so much respect for but it was one of those things where sometimes like you just get caught up on a fucking line and he couldn't get it right and he would either say

like Alvin Ailey Alvin and the Chipmunks right or he'd say I'm going home instead of coming home or he would like reach for it

he couldn't get it right and they're doing so much coverage and crane shots and multiple things they haven't gotten to Romano's

real coverage yet but he hasn't gotten to Romano's real coverage yet. But he hasn't gotten one good take where it sounds like he knows what he's talking about. So every five takes, you know, after the AD would just come and go. What are you doing in the scene? Standing, watching the speech, and smoking a cigarette. That's all I'm doing.

That's 90% of Griffin's role. The crane is on you. Correct. Here's what happened role in the Bible. 95. The crane is on you. Correct. Right. Yeah, of course. Here's what happened early in the day. The still photographer they hired, they outfitted her in period-appropriate clothes so that she could be on camera,

and she kept on pushing me out of view of the camera because she thought her job was more important than mine, which I'm not saying mine was more important than hers, but she said to me, this doesn't even matter. You're not on camera. You don't need to be here. So I was just like, fuck.

So I'm just getting paid to do nothing. I'm literally not visible. You're watching Scorsese work. Right. Which was... All right, let's wrap this story up. Come on, come on, come on. Let's go. It's a good story.

I'm just saying. Much like taking Woodstock, it's full of all these characters that don't really have anything to do with where the story is going. And tangents that lead nowhere. Get ready. This thing's going to pay off

like a fucking slot machine. Fuck. Hell. Okay? I better see some coins. So every five takes, Scorsese comes out. Hey, what about this?

Let's try it from this angle. You know, maybe this kind of thing. And Ray, you know, it's Alvin Lee. I'm, you know, I'm going home. And you go, yeah, yeah, I know. I know. Sorry, Marty.

All right. Take after take after take after take. He comes out. And Ray Ray you know I know I know I know Ray's starting to get a little self conscious about it right and now it's like finally on to Romano's coverage and it's like

four o'clock in the morning and he still hasn't gotten it right once and Scorsese comes out and he goes and Ray you know what I'm gonna say and he goes I know and he goes you know it's important though i mean i i was there and it's a one-man show this is great dead silent this is like a lane stretch yeah they're like 350 people on set including mick jagger i was there i was there right dead silent and he looks around and realizes that he's holding court and just

starts telling the story about him working at Woodstock for the documentary. Getting caught in a sex rap, right? But like pin drop silent. Everyone's there at 4 o'clock in the morning. He goes, yeah, you know, I just got an advantage at NYU and Thelma was an editor on the film. So, you know, they need a couple more people with the cameras. And they said, you know, Scorsese, you know, he's pretty good. He can hold a Bolex.

So they sent me over there. And he starts telling the story about being like the fifth camera guy for the Woodstock documentary and getting in all of these details about it. You know, I just remember, you know, Hendrix was playing in this beautiful, beautiful magenta sunrise. And I was, you know, they were saying, hey, keep the camera on Hendrix. I want to just film the sunrise. I thought the sunrise was so beautiful. And he's like, it's just like this amazing like, oh, here's like Scorsese masterclass talking about all this. And he goes, you know, Abbie Hoffman, you know, he gets up on stage. During the Who, I believe.

Right, yeah. You know, Roger Daltrey, you know, he takes the mic stand. He shoves them in the throat. And I said, why were you so angry? And he went, I wasn't angry. It was just time for me to play, you know, my fucking concert. You know, and then we'd gone through this weekend where we thought we had the dream and then we were going to take over and then the dream was dead then alvin lee gets up and he ends off the whole thing singing i'm going home

and we all realized no that's what this was this was just a weekend you know it's going to be an important moment historically but it's not going to change anything for the worse or for the better this was just a weekend where all this coalesced uh-huh and there's just silence and then he turns back to her mono and he goes, so, you know, now you know what the line means. And he walks away and he never fucks up the line again. And he knew in that moment it was more valuable

to take 15 minutes without doing a take to make it land in his mind so that he never fucked the line up again because now it like was tied to an actual memory frame yeah because you know like man what stock was what it was about oh you know what i wanted to reference do you guys remember the made for tv miniseries event the 60s i was gonna reference it earlier i was i thought there was way more of the because i thought leo schreiber was in it but it wasn't it was jerry o'connell and was that

julie styles was on the poster she's like a flower child just this kind of shit was everywhere for like 15 years and boy am I glad that it's not anymore and we were already in a post

I love the 80s culture no not we had moved on for this movie not for the 60s it was that sort of year where it was kind of the 50th anniversary

of things you know for that whole decade where it'd be like can you believe it? Like 50 years ago, this horse shit happened. But yeah, I guess as far as Gump would have been like the 25th, it was 94.

I mean, people were just so into repackaging this shit and selling it to the people who either experienced it or always regretted missing out. But this time, they weren't buying it. Box office. Well, wait, real quick. Let me pause at one thing. I want to hear your big overarching theory. So like I said, I sort of buy this movie as like a Seamus blank check. buying it. Box office. Real quick, let me pause at one thing. Sort of a tangent. Like I said, I sort of buy this movie

as a Seamus blank check. As a team, they're so powerful. He can make his upstate baby boomer movie. So Ang Lee's blank check, you're saying they got a blank check from Brokeback. Brokeback does so well and they're such a team. Ang Lee's like, I'll do less caution. It's a blank check that covers two movies.

They have not collaborated against since this movie I think that's right is that correct I think this is the last collaboration Seamus obviously directed his own film

then he left Focus and then like Focus gets sort of totally rejiggered but I'm curious if that's true you're right because David McGee

wrote Life of Pi and some guy wrote Billy Lynn it's too bad because Seamus might have done a better job with Billy Lynn

it kind of feels like a good movie for him it's such a bad script but here's my question because Seamus might have done a better job with Billy Lynn. It kind of feels like a good movie for him. I've never seen it. It's such a bad script. But here's my question because I've listened to the series up until this point. Obviously there's some in the middle here that haven't come out yet, but I don't see any Ang Lee in

this movie. No. Sure. How do you feel about Ang Lee in general? So this is my point. I think Ang Lee is a good filmmaker. I think he has made, I think he's a good filmmaker who has think he has made I think he's a good filmmaker who has made great movies I think he's a good filmmaker who's made masterpieces I don't think a great filmmaker truly

like one of the canons could make such an anonymous movie yes yeah right and I don't think that I don't think his lows fit in to the the body of work of a master in the way that I think even the low Clint Eastwood movies are clearly of a piece. I think that Ang Lee is so much,

has some like comparison of like the kind of other person he is. I can't remember right now, but it's just like, what's the notion of like you, if you want someone to fail, you want them to fail with like a quintet rather than a taking Woodstock. Right. Yeah.

And also I think quintets a good movie. Hey, that's a cool, it's better than some other Altman movies of that time period. But I think I just don't think he's, I mean, because he's made great movies. I just listened to the Ice Storm episode

and it's just like, God, I love this movie. I could watch it anytime. This is incredible. Hulk's an American masterpiece. Hulk I have fond memories of. I saw him do a Q&A for it at Tisch when I was in school there. But like, there's just something about him that's like, I think historically he will decrease radically in his importance.

I think in like 30 or 40 years it'll be like, he made quality films at a time that that actually mattered. He won a bunch of Oscars, but, and this is a question for you having lived in him, like, the movies of his I haven't seen, I was like, I should watch those before those his i haven't seen i was like i should watch

those before those episodes and then i was just like i don't care i'll just listen to the episode and then which ones hadn't you i mean i hadn't seen the first three sure the the taiwanese and i was like i should watch those and then i just started listening to it and i was like i get it see eat drink and wedding banquet i would say are wholly worth check i'm sure they are yeah but as soon as i started listening to the episode i was like I get it I've seen this video box a billion times I've seen the trailer like and I just

like my question listening to the series is like I think over time people will just be like he made really prestigious films he won a bunch of Oscars

his movies were occasionally really great but I don't think he has any influence I don't think I think that I think this becomes the measure of like what

becomes like those directors from like the 50s and 60s that were clearly very important but have no lasting impact sure because if like in 20 years and i think currently i mean he's what almost 30 years into a career yeah yeah no one has ever been like i mean that's my guy only is the guy i'm trying to do interesting talk about your biggest influence on this movie i really wanted it to be like an ang lee movie people would be like what does that mean right and it's partly because he's so chameleonic unless it's just like i made this movie about like my family's ethnicity and like this sort of you know low-key emotional drama but people still they wouldn't be like he's the guy i kind of want to make movies that are like and this doesn't mean this doesn't mean his movies are less than great sure it just means that like over the next 30 years i think if that doesn't happen it'll just

be like well he just was part of he was like the end of that system and he made these like super prestigious good movies his influence was zero because like there is no generation of filmmakers that are like that's the guy like the way scorsese is just like forget about it like that's everybody for decades is like i do have a story about Scorsese and Woodstock if you guys want to hear it quickly I will but you know what I mean

like this is my question like what I can't tell if you're doing a bit he is he's gonna tell the story that was great this is what I've been

thinking about listening to the series and looking at some of the movies it's just like what will he be like in 30 years because I think

his impact on film culture since the 90s has been huge because he's made great movies and won awards. I think his influence on film culture has been as low as a massively successful important director could be. I do think there's kind of a fulcrum point leading up to Brokeback where up until that point, almost all the movies really work around that sense of family.

Right. He makes these movies, but that's not so much an influence. There's themes to pull out of his work, for sure. But through the prism of that, how he chooses to shoot those things, how he works with actors,

the tone, all of that. But then this doesn't really feel like it has any of that. This is a shitty movie juice but i mean well it's got juice though uh but you know juice but this doesn't this does feel like a movie like the ice storm or ride with the devil or any of the words he's like here's like a moment in american history we're gonna focus on the family and the generational divides and the way like cultural mores are changing yeah but then he i mean this

movie is just so shitty like and then but then it's like and now like a cgi tiger on a boat like right that's the thing is like life of pie isn't his movie like life of pie is developed by shamalan like other people want to make it yeah and then only just comes on board makes that and it's like my thing now is i make 3d movies yeah and like that's apparently his thing now he only wants to make he's like if i'm making a movie it's 3d high frame rate baby like we're doing it up i don't think gemini man's high frame rate but i believe it is 3d i think it's not high frame rate because a studio like shot the high frame rate camera with a gun and they were like never again will we do this we'll talk about this 15 more times but but it is insane that like Peter Jackson did it with the Hobbit.

And everyone was like, no way too much. And Ang Lee is like, the problem was it should be twice as much as what Peter Jackson did. And a less action packed movie. Like, yeah, I've never seen that.

It's crazy. It's insane. I wanted to see it in high frame rate, but it came and went much like all of his bombs. Like this, like, I just, it's very confusing for me to ponder him because he's always been around.

His movies are important. Right. He has two Oscars, which only of his contemporaries like Clint Eastwood and Spielberg. Right. But I think that like, that's almost proof. And in here.

Right. That's kind of a, a Motley Crue. I just think that that's almost proof that like the movie, his movies exist in a different form. And like, they're just like, some of them are quality enough

to kind of hoodwink the Oscars, which is of course how you win an Oscar. Everybody knows you have to just fool people. But then no one will ever look at Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk or Life of Time as a young person and be like, those are the kind of movies I want to make. No, there's nothing to extrapolate

from even their failures. And that just makes me curious. Who is he as a filmmaker if not someone who makes a bunch of money, wins Oscars, and literally, I believe, has influenced no next generation of successful filmmakers? And it's very interesting

because a lot of people are like that. That doesn't mean that their movies suffer. It just means that over the next generation, what will become of their reputation? In the way that... Norman Jewison. Someone like that. Franklin Schaffner. Yes. He made Planet of the Apes Norman Jewison, someone like that. Great example. Franklin Schaffner. Yes.

He made Planet of the Apes. Yeah. No one ever thinks about it. He made Patton. He won Oscar. Yeah. Jewison's a good one. Yeah.

These are great examples. Like Total Prose. Yeah. And this is a movie about a Jew son. Yeah. Robert Benton. There you go. Yeah.

Taylor Hackford. No, I'm kidding. He wishes. He wishes he was at this level. That's what he's striving for. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Taylor Hackford. No, I'm kidding. He wishes. He wishes he was at this level. That's what he's striving for. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, like, it's just everything else I'm thinking of is kind of more genre specific, but it is those kind of like, I'm going to make

a comedy. Then I'm going to make like a sweeping best picture melodrama, and then I'm going to go to some other country, my home country. It's just like, there is no consistency to it in a way that like for some directors is kind of fascinating. For Ang Lee, I think it's just kind of frustrating because yes

I feel like you've been frustrated with some of our choices recently in what in miniseries topics oh not at all well I mean I know you love this show

which we greatly appreciate you feel frustration with the directors sometimes you're like their work rather than our coverage when you're thinking about the directors

as auteur well I'm only thinking about them as good episode sure again thank you on what like if you could pick a director good question Well, I'm only thinking about them as good episodes. Sure. Again, who would you want to do? On what?

If you could pick a director. If I had Twitter and voted in your bracket. Who would be your biggest wish? Period? Yeah. You should have given me time to think of that. You can think about it. Now I'm just thinking about Alex starting an edgelord Twitter account

just to vote on brackets. I don't know if this is something. And post Dank Simpsons memes. Yeah, it would just be an egg. It would be the egg logo. I don't know if this is something you don't want me to share, in which case we can cut it out. But you told me that. Better just test it by putting it on Mike in case.

Right? You told me that your newest film is really influenced by Verhoeven because you were listening to our Verhoeven episodes were coming out when you were prepping the movie so you started planning the whole thing

through the prism of what Verhoeven also because that's a miniseries that can stay in there but it like made him on the dome in your mind

the fact that you were listening and thinking about those movies every week right I was just like this is what it's about like this 12 week conversation

distills the essence of a filmmaker who i think is very under discussed in the exact right way and ang lee is the same like no one thinks that seriously about him because they just think he makes successful movies sure so like digging in to garbage like this or like some of his masterpieces like sense and sensibility is like really interesting because he is such an anomaly. There's no one like, he doesn't follow any tradition of like the industry having, you know, foreign filmmakers

who like completely end up making movies in another country. Nor is there any... Yes. As a counterpoint, when you were here covering that, I think I said

in the Hollow Man episode, like if this is the worst film you make, you're a really, really great filmmaker. Not because that film is great, but because it's so bizarre and esoteric that it's like, if this is the most anonymous thing he can do,

and it still has this much of his DNA that can't be beaten out of it. Right. This is a paycheck movie? Yeah, and this feels like that almost. This feels like the paycheck movie, even though it's not. It's totally like the end of a decades-long collaboration.

And yeah, I mean, maybe this will be the bottom of your rankings. I'd imagine it will be. Are you doing a bonus episode on The Hire? I kind of want to. We'll talk about that later. Box office game. Remember The Hire? I remember The Hire. But can we do all of The Hire? Maybe. No. Fine. You have to parse it out. We have to save them.

I don't have an answer for that, Ben. If you brought up the bracket, I could give you my picks. There was some in that bracket. There was some I was super nervous about potentially having to listen to. Don Bluth? No, that'd be great. Yeah, Don Bluth would rule.

I thought the Brad Bird series proved that animation, like you're saying, it just doesn't get talked about in the same way. Yeah, sure. Whereas certain things are just like, do we need to keep talking about this?

I would like to. Now I want to know who you didn't want. If you bring it up, I'll run down. I'll find it. I'll say, just to call a shot on Mike, I would like to cover one animation director per year just because they generally have very short filmographies as well. We can talk about that.

I'm just saying that's the thing I would like, and I'm going to let people respond to that. If you have your entire Blank Shack podcast network, you could just have the animation one. Yes, the BCN, which is an offshoot of BCP. Right. Or BCM. Blank Check Media. Let's do the box office. What have we done? Two and a half hours on this fucking movie?

Uh, yeah. Okay, cut the whole episode out, Ben. Alright, let's do the box office. Is it really two and a half hours? No, I don't think it is. It is 221, but we had a lot of chat. A lot of and I'm gonna, you know. But see, that don't think it is. What time is it, Ben? It is 221, but we had a lot of chat on Mike. And I'm going to,

you know. But see, that was part of my goal is I was like, you don't want this to be, as Griffin has described things to me, as one of our least

essential episodes. I was like, in best case scenario, this conversation can elevate this movie to the point where it's like, that's worth thinking about. I mean,

that's why you're a great guest on Blank Check. For these weird one-off failures that great directors do. You also know that Ben why you're a great guest on Blank Check. For these weird one-off failures that great directors do. You also know that Ben isn't going to release this episode. Instead of releasing this episode, he's going to release an episode about someone working at their

desk in the Audioboom office while we record the episode. Honestly, that's super funny. And can I put that out? Yes. So what I'll do is I'll release this episode, but then I'll also record Rachel, my coworker, just working at her desk.

And then at some point you just hear the dulcet tones of the opening and Griffin and she just goes, I guess it started. Yeah, right. But then she gets a really big lunch and she sort of has to... Guys, not spoilers! She just sort of takes a nap. She gets a call from her dad

she's really upset right right right she walks in here and all the chocolate milk is there and she goes i guess i missed it and then the last shot is her just looking at the chocolate milk as someone says hey we're going to record this uh hulk episode next ben look me in the eyes yeah look for that in your feed this Thursday. Okay, yes. Hells yeah. Jesus Christ. All right, the box office game. This movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009.

I did see a weird thing on Wikipedia that it opened on a Wednesday and then went wide on Friday, so they didn't even try to platform it. That's such a boring attempt at platforming. Limited release for two days, for 48 hours. It opened wide. It opened in 1,300 screens. That's wide for this hours and you know it opened wide it opened in 1300

screens like you know that's wide for this movie no it is i know i know but like it's not gonna open big if you do that like it's not open big no matter what that's why it's like the whole thing feels like a fucking it's still open number seven which is not terrible no no no but it was an august release which is made what like three million dollars it opened to 3.4 it made 7.4 9.9 worldwide didn't crack 10 no um number but it's quite a cool as i love august october february box office games the best because it's always just the weirdest weekend again august 28 2009 okay i can place myself in the time yeah go congrats what are you doing in 2009, Alex? At that time, yeah, my first movie

was at film festivals. So I can start dating my life very easily because it's like, oh yeah, I think I had just been to this festival in Australia

for like my first. Is that Impolix? Yeah. Yeah, right. 2009 and then yeah, I was doing nothing. I was staying at home trying to avoid

spending money. Sure. See, this was, I was filming Aware of the Gonzo during this. This was like the first movie I'd gotten and I thought

here I am I've made it this is the beginning so yeah I can kind of date myself to that also at that time my friend filmmaker Aaron Katz the only time we you know our significant others worked and what we would do like once or twice a week would be make a point to go see the most

garbage double feature imaginable the two of you together you would go we would go to go see the most garbage double feature imaginable the two of you together you would go no we would go to like a one and a three cool and like that was our day and we had nothing else to do so there's a huge amount of just trash movies from 2008 and 9 that i saw double features with aaron so well all right okay doldrums august all right number, opening this weekend is, I'm going to say the fifth in a horror franchise, I believe. No, the fourth. Oh, I don't fucking know what it is. It was one of them.

Is it The Final Destination? Yes, it's The Final Destination. Right, which is the fourth because it's not the last one. They did one more after that. They did five. They just did the fifth one and it was Final Destination 5. Correct. Which really is weird. Because they thought we were going to end it and then there was a box office bump

on 4, which was in 3D. This opens to $27.4 million and makes $66. That's not that great. Solid movie. That's a good number. I have not seen that one. I haven't seen that either. I said solid movies. I don't know about 4. 2 and 3 I revisited last year. 2 and 3 are pretty great.

Or saw two for the revisit and saw three for the first time. Good. Which one is the logs? Two? That's three. Yes.

Three is the roller coaster. Yeah. It's the amusement park. Those are the good ones. One's the plan. One sucks. One's not even that good. Yeah.

I sent you the bracket. Oh, I don't have like a way. Oh, did you text it to me? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I don't have email on my phone. So the only way to see it would be to turn it around. I'll swing it around for you. If you want it to me? yeah okay okay I don't have email on my phone so the only way to see it

would be to turn it around I'll swing it around for you if you want me to break it down number one number one number two number two is

a best picture nominee this year a huge hit District 9 nope Inglourious Bastards correct District 9 is number four though

there were two August best picture nominees in one year that's pretty crazy Inglourious Bastards this was the first expanded field year last weekend when you said August 2009 I was just like Inglourious Bastards yeah August Best Picture nominees in one year. That's pretty crazy. This was the first expanded field year too.

Last weekend. When you said August 2009 I was just like Inglourious Basterds. I remember those two I knew they would both be in the five. My main memory of that month

was how excited I was for that movie. Right. Which is a very good movie. I still think it may be his best film. It's that or Jackie Brown for me.

I go between the two. When are you guys going to talk about him? Under discussed filmmaker. Yeah right. God the amount of people on Reddit who are like it's weird that they haven't done tarantino yet i'm like it's weird huh yeah it's weird uh number three how to describe this another horror film opening this weekend as well weird the two horror films that go against each other

is it a franchise yeah the second in a rebooted franchise it's not it's not the hills of ice 2 no but you know like it's that kind of thing you're in the right and about that pedigree higher in terms of name size it's higher than that agree yeah higher pedigree i did not see this film i did see i think the first reboot yeah yeah and it was like the person who rebooted the movie they liked his take enough that they

let him do another one I guess oh oh oh it's H2 Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 right Family is Forever

you know we should do Rob Zombie I kind of like Rob Zombie as a filmmaker that would be a great series Devil's Rejects is a

very good film you know what's interesting about that is that I've maintained for years I was like this is a great movie you Let me. Devil's Rejects is a very good film. You know what's interesting about that is that I've maintained for years. I was like, on it. This is a great movie. Yeah.

You'd love it. We watch a horror movie every day in October. And we watched two years ago. She's like, fine, let's finally watch it. And then half an hour into it, I was like,

this movie sucks. Really? Yeah. It's not good. My thing with Rob Zombie is he's not good. See, I loved it at the time. Me too.

And I even watched it like three years later. And I was like, no, still fucks. And I don't think I've seen it in 10 years. I checked it. I watched it every once in a while. I have it. I watched it every once in a while. I have it. It's a bummer. He was one of those guys

where like the first couple times you're like I just this is new. It's different and then by the time he's making the haunted world of L Super Beast or you're like this guy is such a one. Not even that. Like Lords of Salem. I think that one's good. Really? Lords of Salem is good. Lords of Salem was after. But yeah.

I know that. I was bummed to finally convince her to watch Devil's Rejects and she was just like, I can't believe you think this movie's good. And I was like, I kind of don't anymore. So you're not excited

for Three from Hell? I am though. I thought 31 was okay too. I didn't see 31. Halloween 2 made $33 million on a 15 budget. I mean,

whatever. Yeah, but the first one did much better. I think, yes. Yeah. How many Halloweens

have there been? This is the fourth highest grossing Halloween film. I think there are 10 in total. There's 10 in total. Because I think Resurrection was eight. Right. And then there are two zombies. Correct.

And then David Gordon Green's is going to be the 11th. And the none. Tell me the highest grossing Halloween movie. Two? H2O. No, it's the Rob Zombie one. Oh, crazy. It made 58.

Like, this has never been like a cash... I know. For the first one, you're not just for inflation. Isn't it amazing that they made a Halloween movie 20 years after the first one and they called it H2O? Insane. Yes, it is. And that one did... And there's no water involved in the movie. If you were just for inflation,

that movie did really well. I like it. I think that movie did very solid. I think it's really funny how they did that. H2O? It's I think it's really funny how they did that. H2O. It's just because it's wet and it's wet stuff. They should have made Inside Resurrection

the next one should have been called Halloween Fire. It's just weird that it's called H2O and that was one of the early ones to ignore sequels. Correct. And now they're doing it again

with Halloween. I don't think that one ignores sequels. I think it just brought Jamie Lee back for the first time. No, it ignores it. It ignores all the bullshit about how Michael Myers is like, you know, revived by witches and all that stuff. It's a sequel

to Halloween 2. I've only ever seen the original. Much like this next one is. Alright. Because at the end of H2O, she chops his head off with an axe. She chops his head off and looks at his face. And then in Resurrection they're like, eh, it was some other guy. And Resurrection's Buster Rhymes.

Oh, yeah. I believe it's like web streaming. He's doing... Imagine all the things I don't remember and don't know and I can instantly recall how she kills Michael Myers

at the end of H2O. I hate my brain so much in that way. Josh Hartnett's in it, I believe. Michelle Williams. Michelle Williams. Jesus Christ. Okay.

And number four is District 9, which we talked about. You nailed that. Number five? It's the first in a two-film franchise. Made a fair amount of money. Action movie. They only made two of them. They only made two of them.

The bad guy has a cool voice. A lot of people in this movie. Good guess. It's going to make $150. It costs $175. Oh, wow. Oh, oh, oh. This is, of course, G.I. Joe, Rise of Cobra.

Correct. A movie I kind of go to the.I. Joe Rise of Cobra. Correct. So Stephen Sommers film, I believe. A movie I kind of go to the mat for. I like Sommers. I think that's the right level of dumb. Sommers would be a good series. Sommers of Love. I feel like we talked about Sommers on the Hall of Fame episode.

Yeah, didn't we talk about Van Helsing, maybe? Yeah, right, right. I will take down the G.I. Joes. I love Deep Rising. He's pretty much Starscream, right? Oh, yeah. Megatron! God, this is just another reason we'll never do Michael Bay. We'd have? Oh, yeah. Megatron! This is just another reason

we'll never do Michael Bay. We'd have to do that for it. We've also got Julie and Julia. We've got The Time Traveler's Wife, another famously delayed movie. This is a kind of big rom month. Romilly was really

swimming in it this month. That movie made me cry. Shorts. Oh, Romilly gets a shorts. That's one of my favorite movie theater marquees of all time was when that and Glorious Bastards were both out at the same time at the Court Street

the Regal Court Street and said Glorious Shorts G-Force did you see G-Force? the hamster movie? no again what a horrible thing for my brain to have bothered to retain

our all time worst double features, the all-time worst was Appaloosa and College. Oh, jeez. Wow, Alex, wow. This is what I used to do with my time. Yeah. This is why I'm so happy to have jobs now, because it saves me from doing stuff like that.

I remember. That was the bottom. Appaloosa's bad then. Appaloosa was really boring. College, I think, I maintain is probably the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. Starring Kevin Covey and Drake Bell. We also saw Lakeview Terrace and Ghost Town. This is like how we would spend our time.

Lakeview Terrace is wild. I kind of like that one. That's a weird movie. That's an insane movie. These are the kind of movies that I'm the most excited. Ghost Town's cute. I mean, sure. Yeah, like, yeah.

It's true. It's a gentleman's set. Yeah, these are the kinds of movies I'm the most excited when What was it? Ghost Town? Ghost Town's cute. I mean, sure. Yeah, like, yeah. It's true, as a gentleman said. Yeah, these are the kinds of movies I'm the most excited when I hear them come up on a box office game where you're just like, you're just like, oh, wow. Lakeview Terrace. Lakeview Terrace, where it was like,

what if the guy next door is a cop and he doesn't like you and he's Samuel Jackson? Why is he mad at him? Who's the lead of Lakeview Terrace? It was like Tom Jane, Patrick Wilson. It's Patrick Wilson, Kerry Washington, I think, live next door to Samuel Jackson. Why is he mad at him? Who's the lead of Lakeview Terrace? It was like Tom Jane, Patrick Wilson. Is Patrick Wilson Kerry Washington? I think live next door to Samuel Jackson.

And it's a Neil LaBute movie. Correct. And he's like doing that thing where he's like, I'm asking questions and we're like, you're not asking any questions. You're just like, what if the guy's black? I think Sam Jackson's really good. There's a really good moment. He's always good. When is he ever bad? That's a real never bad. I think sometimes he's lazy, but he's never bad.

Sure, he might just... Eugene Levy, if you will. Sometimes he's doing the bare minimum because he knows his bare minimum is more powerful than mine. You just want me to kind of say what would be cool. First of all, I'm very happy and excited about Nancy Meyers. I will say. I think that's going to be very cool. A lot of these are kind of obvious.

David and Ben are canoodles? Yeah, they are. They're touching each other. I mean, I'm a real touchy guy. I think Gore Verbinski would be cool.

Yeah. Peter Jackson, I think would be cool because I really love and care about all six of his Lord of the Rings movies. Disagree.

Sure, I kind of do too. So, I think that could be very interesting. I hope you don't ever do Hal Ashby. Really?

That would just be so excruciating. Who cares? There's nothing left to say. Do you hate Hal Ashby or do you just think it's shoot over? I think you're be so excruciating who cares there's nothing left to say do you hate Al Ashby or do you just think it's shoot over I think you're right I think you're right

there's nothing left to say this is my criteria there is some big talk about him coming out this year right I think it was at Sundance or something there's just nothing left to say

like could you fill up 90 minutes talking about Harold and Maude well I despise that movie I like that movie but I would not want to do an episode on it as much as some of the other ones 8 million ways to die

looking to get out these would be excruciating episodes and you'd have to force people to listen to them yeah well we're never not want to do an episode on it as much as some of the other ones. 8 million ways to die looking to get out. These would be excruciating episodes and you'd have to force people to listen to them. I think the thought was that we'd only do the 70s.

Martin Bruss would be very cool. Martin Bruss would be He'd be fun. Gilliam, cool. Joe Dante, cool. Dante would be great. Nora Ephron, cool.

Ephron would be great. Sam Raimi would be excruciating. Really? We might do him. I'd love to do him. It's just going to be so boring. We've gotten close.

You don't like Spider-Man? You don't like those? Spider-Man! I really, really love two of his 14 movies. You're not an evil dead guy at all. No, I actually think I hate those movies.

Really? It's kind of a hot take. My capacity for watching like 80s and 70s like underground horror is literally bottomless. Yeah. I think those are some of the worst movies I've ever seen. That's insane. That's crazy. I like those movies. This is all good stuff. capacity for watching like 80s and 70s like underground horror is literally bottomless yeah I think those are

some of the worst movies I've ever seen that's insane that's crazy I like those movies this is all good stuff yeah uh

Saranovsky cool Lucas on that I'll be appreciated we're good Michael Mann will be great I feel like that came close right

man we're gonna do I mean I'm just gonna make that happen that just has to happen oh boy the argument Malick would be interesting the concession you're gonna have to make

to me when you agree oh you mean like you're gonna get man out of me and i'm gonna have to let you do fucking le casper a spirited beginning 10 times that's what we should do for 200 there's gonna be like a quid pro quo where i agree to let you do man and you agree let me do brad silver like no i think some of these are like like elaine may want to do man and you let me do Brad Silver. No. I think some of these are like like Elaine May Warren. You want to do man. Those would be cool

because those would be cool because those are short. Yes. Those would be like I like doing shorties. I mean that man is also short.

You know some of them are good shorties. Sam is getting long. Yeah. I don't know. Buzz Lerman would be great. Lerman I'd love to do

and actually recently applicable. I recently rewatched Romeo and Juliet which is still his best movie in my opinion. Yeah, there's some good stuff in there. I was into the bracket from afar.

We could do an episode where we do a live commentary at Moulin Rouge on Broadway. Oh, I'd love to do that. Well, a live commentary might be poorly received

by our seatmates. Jesus Christ, I'm a broken man. Give me something. A lot of good stuff. Yeah, that's true. I never give you anything.

You never give me anything. I meant too many of those. Give me an inch. He told like a 20 minute story about Martin Scorsese. Good story. It paid off nicely. Very nice. Look, the point is you have lots of good options there and I hope the show runs forever.

I hope you can do all of those. Sure. Why not? Except for the ones I sent. You know what I emailed? Wait, what was the one? Didn't I specifically email McTiernan? That's the one I want. Yeah, that'd be fun. You want to come through for medicine, man? Wait, what was the one? Then I specifically email, uh, McTiernan. That's the one I want.

That'd be fun. That's that. You want to come through for medicine, man? Uh, no basic. Oh, that is such an Alex.

Whatever the bombs are. The only thing I remember about basic is that it has a quote unquote Rashomon like structure, right? And also has like an insane twist, but it's not that insane. And the trailer has a point. The trailer has a point where John Travolta picks up a chair,

turns it around, sits on it backwards, like a cool guy and says let me break it down for you or something like that much like do you want to see the center of the universe these like trailer lines just like splinters in your mind that was a duly appointed federal marshals when we talked about of course when we talked about like our you know mutual trivia time yeah at one point i signed up to do a guest round which I never did but my dream was trailer lines which is to say like a line from a trailer

that you're like oh I remember that if you want my blood take my blood you're insane you might also be brilliant like these lines that the trailer

kind of like is focused around do you know what I was thinking David what we should maybe see if we could if we could do videology trivia

one night if they would let us do like a blank check trivia night about the show not About the show? Not about the show but about the movies we've covered because there have been so many of them now. I think they'll let us do that. Like I think we could shoot higher than that but yes let's do it.

Why not? Don't say that. I'm not dissing them I'm just saying like they'll let us do that. Okay so we'll play Carnegie Hall. I don't know what you want. Well I think I was just gonna say to Al I feel like both of us have sort of in the last year kind of shifted from like blank check is a thing we love to do to like, should we put like a lot of eggs in this basket? Is this the thing? We just did our A-series round of funding and we raised $2 billion for blank check media.

So we're trying to figure out how to spend it now. It's like a Brewster's Millions. We're going to start MoviePass 2. Ben has already spent a million dollars buying inventory of blank check fidget spinners. I told you. I emailed you guys when I was visiting. I went to like a guest lecture thing at University of Bloomington, Indiana. And like three people in the film department confided to me like an hour and a half into this dinner.

They were like, just so you know, like we all love blank check. And this was like the week the Hollow Man episode came out and they're like we love the insomnia i was like well i got good news for you there's an episode coming on sunday and then i was like you guys all really love it and then they were telling everyone else at the table about it happens all the time i'm always really it really makes us and always places where people bring up that they enjoy these appearances uh and then i said that you guys should go to bloomington and do like uh because the head of the, cause the head of the department, the head of the department was like,

what's this? This sounds very interesting. And I was like, yeah, bring them out, have them like screen movies and talk to people. And I think I put that in an email and you guys were like, sure,

let's do a roadshow, get on a plane and go to Bloomington and show movies to a bunch of fans. What if we, what if we like make it like a vaudeville act? Griffin's like, what if we ruin it though? Is there a way it could be really annoying? I don't know.

I could have horns or something. Ben's like, there'll be a wet room. Yeah, that's funny. I have a herniated disc. I'm never going to be able to act again. I need to figure something else out. That's what I'm saying. The eggs are slowly being put into this basket.

Yeah. Into Ben's basket. Yeah, into Ben's basket. Ben's basket boy. What a great episode it's been. Oh, Griffin. You listened to us unravel. I'm just in pain. It's fine. Yeah, into Ben's basket. Ben's basket boy. What a great episode it's been. Oh, great. You listened to us unravel. I'm just in pain.

It's fine. All right. All right. Thank you for having me back. Oh, please. Thank you for being here. What an honor and a privilege. Go see Christopher Robin for the third time.

Chris Robin fever. Yeah, Christopher Robin's great. And also- Which is a serious condition I got when I was working on the movie. A lot of British people get that. Her smell. Her smell is going to be eternal when this posts. We were talking about this.

As of the recording, this is not known. As of the release of this episode, it's literally playing right now. Right. It's at the Roy Thompson Hall. We're all there. I've seen it. I was a very big fan. Griffin saw a rough cut. I haven't seen it. You're a critic, so. I've seen it. I was a very big fan. Griffin saw a rough cut.

Yeah. I haven't seen it. You're a critic, so you have to win. I'm part of the disgusting press. I'm on the inside. Wait, I got to tell you a story, but off mic.

If this were coming out today, that would be too soon to release, but September whatever, 9th, 10th? 10th, I believe, yeah. Yeah, it'll be out there. Gary for that. Good picture.

Good talkie. Great. Yeah. I'm very excited. Yes. Thank you all for that. Good picture. Good talkie. Great. Yeah. I'm very excited. Yes. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to subscribe. Thanks to Andrew Gooder for our social media,

Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork, Lane Montgomery for our theme song. Go to reddit.blankies.com for some real nerdy shit. And as always, Sure. And as always Sure You got me straight tripping, boo Now, David

David, if you're a blankie You probably like watching movies True Right? Yeah But have you ever thought about Reading movies? Reading about movies.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Interesting twist, right? Because you know who our sponsor for today's episode is. Tell me. Abrams Books. Abrams Books. They have a new book called, well, this book really ties the films together.

It's about the Coen brothers. It's written by Adam Neyman, the great Toronto film critic who's a friend and blankie. I'm pretty sure Adam's listening right now. The dude rules and this book is cool. It's like a classy coffee table book. But I'll say this. I got it, right? And I was showing it

off to my downstairs neighbors and they said like, whoa, they sent you that for free? That's probably a really expensive book. And I looked at the price. Do you know what the price is in the back? I don't know. $40. It's like a good value for a book that's going to make you look so smart and sophisticated. It's also a really expensive book. And I looked at the price. Do you know what the price is in the back? I don't know. $40. Yeah. This is like a good value for a book that's going to make you look so smart and sophisticated. It's also just like not like a hacky coffee table book where it's all pictures. Adam's put a lot of work into it. He's got like big sort of theories on every Coen movie.

He goes through every one of the movies. He breaks into eras. He's doing the narrative. Yeah. He is doing the narrative. He's looking at the career as a whole. Yeah. But Adam said, pictures of this thing are gorgeous.

Gorgeous pictures. Sometimes you got a two-page spread. Oh, there's two-page spreads of the opening title cards, which that's really up Davey's alley. Anyway, it's a great book. Friends of the show. And, like, you know, get out there and pick it up. As we always say on the show, you got to open the book. And in this case, the book is, well, it really ties the room together.

Yeah.