Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Richard Lawson

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

2007’s THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON is a film that dares to ask the question, “What if he baby but old?” Despite the meme-ification of David Fincher’s trip to the uncanny valley, we are pleased to make our belated case for why this movie is GOOD, actually, and in step with the themes of Da Finch Man’s body of work - not a sappy outlier. Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson returns to the podcast as we all grapple with mortality, wistfully opine about tugboats, and develop an absurd running bit about late character actor Orson Bean (who is not in this movie). Did you know Producer Ben has been struck by lightning seven times? This episode is sponsored by: Bombas (bombas.com/check CODE: CHECK) ExpressVPN (ExpressVPN.com/check) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

Some people were born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers.

And some people podcast. That was good. Hello, thank you. I can't do this for very long. You can't do this for very long. So one of you is doing Fran Lebowitz, and the other is doing Tom Waits in Shortcuts. There's no good restaurants anymore.

Me or Kissy, come on. We should just say that we are all, in fact, old. That's how the episode is starting out. We've never started an episode. Can't rightly walk, can I? No. David's in a wicker wheelchair. We're going to end this episode in the crib.

But we start in one foot in the grave. Do you know, have any of you read the short story? Ow. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The drunkest short story he ever wrote. I read it. You read it? In preparation for this.

It's only like 20 pages long. It doesn't have too much in common with the film, right? It's quite different. Ask me how many pages it is. You said 20, so I'm going to ask you how many pages it is. 20. But it feels a lot longer. but it feels a lot longer.

That just feels like it was like, wow, whatever, God, age backwards. And they're like, yeah, sure, Scott,

can you fucking, where's your novel? And he's like, I just gotta go get some cigarettes. I can't, I don't know why I'm doing that. That's how we talked. It's about him waking up with a hangover,

feeling really old. And by the end of the night, he's kind of like, Google got, got baby drunk. Every impression the end of the night, he's kind of like, goo-goo-ga-ga, baby drunk. Every impression we do in this episode is going to end up being... It's going to be like this.

Look at that old man. Man. You know who I love? Who? Benjamin Button? Yeah, especially that flavor. This guy. Benjamin Button.

I want that guy around. One of the ten coolest characters we've ever covered on this podcast. Like, he should be on Jackass. Snake Plissken. You know, just hanging out with everyone else. Seven-year-old Benjamin Button. Neo from The Matrix. The Terminator.

Ripley. Who are the biggest badasses we've ever covered on this show? I was just going to ask if Brad Pitt is the only actor, other than Thornton, obviously, to be nominated for doing a Sling Blade for at least half of this movie. French fried potatoes.

He's gone full Sling Blade for at least a good chunk of it. The thing I was going to say about the story. Yeah. F. Scott Fitzgerald. In the story. He kind of talked like this. I was going to say about the story. Yeah. F. Scott Fitzgerald. In the story. He kind of talked like this. I don't know. What did he talk like?

Old sport? Yeah, sure. I don't know. Take a swing. I never heard him on the, you know, phonograph. All right. The story. Your rock cylinder collection is not great, by the way.

Last time I was at your place, I was leafing through it. I fucking put a wick in one of them and lit it by mistake. I was taking a bath. You have rumors. I have rumors. I'm born to run. I've got no jacket required. No deep cuts. The thing in the story is it's like the father goes to walk around the block pacing and waiting for the doctor to come out with the cigar.

The son, it's a boy. Congratulations, right? Right. He goes to the post office. He gets his residual check for LXG. How to baby eats a boy. How to make a Jason Fleming joke. Doctor walks out.

He's like, I'm ruined. I'm ruined, I tell you. And he's like, what happens? Is it a boy? Is it a girl? And he's like, it's something so awful. They'll take my degree away. Your family is banned from this hospital forever.

And the accents are written phonetically exactly the way I'm doing them right now. And he's like, tell me what it is. He's like, I can't tell you. You go in there. You see for yourself. And he walks in and the nurses are like, oh, curse you. Curse you, Mr. Button. And he's like, what happened?

What was so bad? Point to me. Which one is my baby? And they go, it's that one over there. And it is a little old man with a long beard who's like hello father he's not a baby right he has an old man he has an old like an old man just kind of tiptoed out it's richard farnsworth tractor right basically right that's how it's presented and they're like we have to swallow you in a blanket blanket that's

no clothes for an old man like let's go watch batlock like a fully sentient old man correct right with like his own personality and history which makes sense when you hear that the first version of this movie to like properly be set up was frank oz directing as a martin short vehicle right yeah which is which is basically like right ben yeah it's a real it's a real path not taken moment right it's. It's basically a Clifford sequel. Basically Clifford. Clifford the whole life. This might have predated Clifford or was it right after?

I think it probably is around the same time. But I do think it was optioned in the 80s. We'll dig in, obviously. But that's what you think about. Martin Short playing a literal old man in like probably I assume it was meant to be a modern day adaptation. Sure. But like going to school it sounds really fun and it sounds great right we would have gotten jiminy glick that much

earlier you know because i feel like that would be sort of the voice interviewing seven-year-old ben jimmy buck yeah how funny would that have been no you say you're seven but you look a lot older this movie but you look a lot older yeah they look a lot older don't you look a little bit later short has been defended on the internet the worst take in the internet and i don't say that lightly was dropped and in in as a reward for us all having to only read the headline and not read the body of that piece right we had the best four days of the internet in a long time which was just everyone sharing martin short clips and my new favorite glickism is when a guest makes a joke and he goes like i almost get it exactly Exactly. He laughs first and then says,

I don't think I understand. You know, the way this movie, I mean, sort of like the magic trick of this movie is like building to the moment where you have Brad Pitt at the exact midpoint where he finally gets to be Brad Pitt, right? Where he's not de-aging, he's not kicked in makeup and whatever.

It'd be so funny if the Martin Short movie, his perfect moment in the middle was glick that's what he is ideal he glicks it right yeah it all glicks together and that's when he gets with his love interest and she's like we're meeting in the middle like yeah right yeah it's his love interest dixie yeah exactly it's dixie listen uh this is blank check with griffin and david i am David I am Griffin I'm David I look a lot older I look a lot Simzer this is a podcast about

filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects

they want sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby it's a mini series on the films of David Fincher. It is called The Curious Case of Ben...

I'm sorry. The Curious Pod of Benjamin Buttcast. Yep. And today we're talking about that film. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I think is fair to say is kind of his most maligned movie. I feel like it has the worst reputation it's a joke

it's more of a meme than a movie at this point and I think after re-watching it for the first time since it was in theaters that it deserves

to be a lot more I think this movie is very good this movie is very very good I think this movie is wildly misunderstood and I think it is

a perfect example of a movie that was fucked by being placed in the center of Oscar discourse. That's part of it. And having a crazy digital stunt. That was all anyone talked about in the lead up to the movie.

Right. The context in which this movie was released with those two forces framed it horribly. David Fincher directing it, I think, is a huge problem for this movie. Coming off of what is his entire career arguably his best film the peak of his career but it's not just that it's just this is to this day kind of an odd uh sappy in a good way entry in his career well we can talk about it i'm just saying like people are sort of thrown i think being like this is a fincher movie but i also think that's why its reputation is so weird is that people also view it as a failed weepy that they're like this is a Fincher movie? But I also think that's why its reputation is so weird is that people also

view it as a failed weepy. That they're like, this is him trying to go full emotional catharsis and failing. That's the thing, it's easy to tag it

with exactly like, he's going Oscar bait. But he's going for something kind of darker here and then for other people they're like, this is sappier than I want

out of his cynicism. Well, look, I'm going to say my journey with this film and I bet you I'm going to say your two journeys with this film when I say this. Sure. Saw this film in 2008 when it came out. Yeah. I was 22. You were probably a little younger.

But I looked a lot older. And you were probably just a little older. I was a little older, yeah. But you looked a lot younger. Well, no, you didn't. I could argue that. And I was like, boring. And then I didn't. But you looked a lot younger. Well, no, you didn't. I could argue that. And I was like, boring! And then I didn't watch it again for a long time, and then I watched it for this,

and I cried my little eyes out. Interesting. And I was like, what a wonderful film. I don't think when you're that age, you... Yeah, I think I was not really... You have to really have thought about death a lot more. You know, we've all had death in our lives, but, like, I mean, your own mortality.

And this is a movie where, like, everyone's like, oh, it's a sentimental Oscar bait. Yes, about the inevitability and the horrifying inevitability of death and trying to eke some small modicum of hope. Not only that, but this movie is kind of about like, meaninglessness. Yeah, exactly. Like, it's like, we're here and we're gone

and like, there's not much we can do about that. This movie's mostly about working a tugboat. So I don't know. Well, yeah, sure. Which, David, is meaningless. To be as reductive as possible, but I do think this is like the cultural narrative of this movie, is he's trying to do Gump, right?

Yes, right. Eric Roth wrote it. Totally. And it's positioned that way. It's paramount. They put a ton of money into it. It's got a huge beloved star, two huge beloved stars,

but you're sort of like, this doesn't feel like the kind of movies big studios make anymore. And it's because Forrest Gump is this fucking aberration that every couple years studios would be like, could we replicate that in any way? And Big Fish is an attempt at a Gump. Couple years after

this, Walter Mitty's an attempt at a Gump. When's the last time we Gumped? I think Walter Mitty was the end of them trying to even get a Gump. Has there not been one Gump since middy and walter middy parodies benjamin button almost as if to say they fucked up we're gonna gump it correctly right but is like also haunted by a little bit of stiller being like how much like studio comedy do i need to put in this right to satisfy satisfy my audiences um but this movie i think people saw it as oh he fucked up trying to gump rather than isn't that embarrassing right rather than i think fincher going here's my

interpretation of forrest gump which i think he executed pretty successfully to his worldview but it is almost by design a movie that is kind of prickly and off-putting and like it's it's not going to offer you any emotional catharsis it's deeply sad if you really engage with what it's saying but in a way that like most people don't really want to have to think in this movie um it's funny though because it's like i was talking to my friend who hadn't seen button because she's like five years younger than me and that's it's kind of enough our guest, by the way, is Richard Lawson. Hello.

A Vandy Fair local man. Can I just say before you finish your point, David, I am so honored just a few days after its New York Fashion Week debut to be in the Congratulations Atelier. Yes. I don't think a lot of people get to come here. I'm wearing my recycle polo.

I want one. David, I'm going to get you one. I love a polo. Absolutely. Yes. We are. Call me a British mint because I love polo. Okay.

Okay. Some people get that. Yeah. We are like just almost about a week. It's been about a week since we did. Ben's Fashion Week. Congratulations. Live at the Bell House.

Yeah. Richard was gracious enough to be a celebrity judge. I had a small amount of participation in the show. And then I felt like the second half of the show, Mrs. Harris kind of took over. Yeah, you really got body checked off the stage by Mrs. Harris. But it's so weird, though, because I feel like there was no reason why you guys couldn't have done something together. But you just kind of disappeared. I'm such a big fan.

I'm so on the record as being such a big fan of your work. I saw her backstage. That lady's ego. I don't know, man. She was fucking carrying it around with her. She threw a phone at me. Now, to be fair, you wouldn't hurry up. Right.

And I had stolen her Dior dress. She did dust it first, too. That's true. It was a squeaky clean phone. It was so fun being backstage. It reminded me of being in college and putting on a play. And so I'm grateful for the opportunity, Ben. And you too, also.

Thank you. Yes, that's all true. It was so fun. And I want to thank you guys for letting me do that crazy show. Of course. This is like two months old by the time this episode is up. It was very much Griff and I just sort of being like, We're long for the run.

So this is your thing. Like people kept texting me questions. And I would just be like, guys, I understand that I'm often a logistical person. I'm all the talent this time. You arrived backstage exasperated and said like, what is this fucking thing? Why is everyone asking me where to go? I was getting texts from a lot of people being like i'm here where do i go and i'm like this is ben's show it's not my show ben you and marie your fashion shows in the spring in milan

i always do milan in the spring everyone knows that everyone knows that um you guys have a non-compete clause with each other You and Marie Party party party Did a long segment of Your favorite looks in film history Yeah that I actually didn't really see much of Because I was backstage Had you seen Button before? I had never seen Button

I feel like there's some stuff in Button That could repurpose itself into a Congratulations formal wear line There's some looks Okay such as Beings have been looking a lot older Tattoos you can kiss Tattoos you can kiss

The Jared Harris character who does his own tattoos He's an artist Those are some fantastic looking tattoos Yes They shot up my paint They shot up my painting Painting tattoos that's he's an artist those are some fantastic looking tattoos yes yeah yeah they shot up my paint isn't that what he says they shot my painting yeah painting painting he's just talking about his own a lot of a lot of hot southern wool yeah i like movies where people wear wool down in the bayou yeah yeah well it breathes so well you know yes to finish my point please um

talking to uh my friend who's right just a little younger than me and that's enough to have not seen this in theaters and then basically missed the boat on button sure because button didn't really endure that much no it bought its way into the criterion collection god bless i have and otherwise yes exists as a joke exists as a meme and i was like you know this movie got 13 oscar nominations which is like almost like it's to the record. It's like two below the record. Obviously, it's a technical move. But it got 13 Oscar nominations. It won three.

It made $330 million worldwide. It was a hit. It starred Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. It was directed by... It has like, you know, career launching performances from people like Mahershala Ali and Taraji Henson. Not only that, it's like basically, it's immediately followed by Fincher's most successful run. Like this kickstarts him finally getting accepted by the Academy.

They recognize him. And then he does the run where it's like three for three. The movies do well. They get Oscar nominations. People are into them. Yeah. Yeah. And yet it is a completely forgotten movie in some way.

It's a bit of a forgotten movie. Other than she was like, oh, he has Benjamin Button's disease. She was like, I know he ages backwards right and i was like yeah you know it's sort of related uh to his you know long lost love in a diary while hurricane katrina bears down on him i'm realizing this sounds insane as i type this out this is my whole read on the movie they're like it's that tiffany pollard like meme like hurricane katrina like question mark question mark like like an hour in forky was like wait that it's hurricane katrina like literally yeah it is and they're like knowing newsroom lines of like oh it's it's gonna skip it's not gonna hit the city right yeah anyway but then

no this is part of your big take okay that's very big take but if i can just put i kicked my face down this is usually what david does and I've gotten to the bad habit. The power is transferring. I know. I'll say my big take in a second, but my adjourn to this movie was, I liked Fincher well enough, but he was not one of my guys. I go to see Zodiac opening weekend. I'm like, holy shit, he is the guy.

In my mind at that moment i'm like you're saying about the zodiac killer yes and i was like and the director did a pretty good job i like what he stands for i like how he does it i hope zodiac still work and i'd love to see him do a couple more murders i felt the way about the zodiac killer i did about axel rose where i was like i got into him too later they ever to get back together and do the old routines again? The point is... Sorry, I was... I know, and David checked his emails

and you checked your phone and Ben started editing a different episode. I saw Zodiac, I was all about it. Right. And so then I'm like... Hard not to be.

Whatever this guy's next movie is, this is now my most anticipated movie. And you'd hear these things because it had, like, such a long post-production process. I remember reading an article in in the new york times about what they were trying to like pioneer um or no i'm sorry i remember reading that article in 2006 before zodiac even comes out

um and then i'm all in after zodiac the trailer for this movie i remember seeing for the first time opening weekend crystal Crystal Skull. The trailer was not online. Yep. It's summer 2008. It's kicking off the summer. It's a lot of trailers for the big summer movies. Yeah.

This thing plays. And much like I remember the feeling of when the Social Network Theater trailer played for the first time. Yep. Two great fucking teasers. Yep. That have such a different tone than everything else that was playing that the audience just went pin drop silent i was like what is this fucking thing i must have seen this trailer 100 times it was unbelievable and it's a great trip it is a movie that if anything suffers from the fact that its trailer is a better version of what

it's trying to do in 90 seconds than the movie is. It's just such a concise, evocative... He cuts a good trailer. Remember that Mank trailer? Everyone's saying Mank all the time? Oh, yeah. Mank! What's Mank? Uh, excuse me? Is that a movie? It's an alert. It's a state of mind. I say it to mean that there's a bird near you. Mank!

For me, it's more of a worldview. Look, in 2008, I think we're probably pretty similar, Griffin. Yeah. I saw a lot of movies. I had just moved to New York. That was prime. Yeah. Didn't have a lot of friends.

Not to humble brag. I had no friends. I lived in New York. I saw a movie every week, if not more. Saw this trailer a thousand times. My rewatch of this movie was probably the second time I've seen it. But there are so many lines like, oh, that older. Or we're meeting in the middle or whatever.

That's main trailer. The teaser has almost no dialogue other than the opening narration. And it runs through his whole life. The trailer, the last shot of the trailer is Cate Blanchett walking the little boy. I mean, and I remember that very clearly. And it's just kind of like tone poem stuff, but done in order. And you're like,

holy shit. I also remember thinking is Fincher the first guy who's cracked the uncanny valley that was the whole and that's the promise of the teaser right because you're like this is like pretty evocative and kind of magical seeming art like but but it's also damned by those expectations totally it's kind

of why like the a24 trailers for the whale yes like did not want to show you Fraser you know because it was like what do you mean we had one perfectly good picture of him right that was just worth a thousand words that was all you needed the Benjamin Button film was even more withholding

you know and it really worked until it kind of doesn't because you eventually do have to see the thing yes yes but that first teaser I was like holy fucking shit and I remember saying to my dad they played the trailer for the new fincher movie it looks like it's like one of the best things ever made and he was like like the trailer is one of the best things ever made or the movie looks like it's going to be one of the best films ever made and i said i think both yeah i went into

this with unrealistically high expectations of my man's just going to make one of the 10 greatest films of all time. A lot of us did have really big expectations. And this wasn't a festival movie, so like, we were just seeing it. I love a long movie title like that. Totally. That's kind of exciting and intriguing.

The film's called Benjamin Button. Right. I'm going to bed. But what if I told you about the curious case? This case is a curious one. And you're like, how curious? Like, what are we talking about here? Like, George? Right. Like, is there And you're like, how curious? Like, what are we talking about here? Like, George?

Right. Like, is there a man with a big yellow hat? Like, what are we doing? But I saw it. I was slightly disappointed, but I don't think I dismissed it the same way you did. I thought it was terrible, but I was definitely kind of like,

oh, that was a little bit of a slog. Technically, so impressive. I think I was, I had been in New York for two years. I was, you know, where I was i was working where gawker.com a perfect as a staff writer that was my first full year and so i was not in that kind of headspace and i was and because i mean i i'd loved still love forrest gump like i i owned the vhs like whatever so i i have a chocolate my sentimentalism has re-emerged sure but i just knew

working for gawker i was like there's no way that i can no like that movie no you know and so maybe i went in even though that trailer was snarky feeling snarky yeah um and then i just kind of forgot about it until i re-watched it for this podcast i remember uh seeing it thinking it was good defending it feeling like i get what he's trying to do here. I understand why people are going to dislike this. I can't deny I feel a little disappointed by it, but I respect it. And then I felt like it kind of got a

bad rap, but it was also like, I don't really feel an amount of enthusiasm to want to defend it. And it partly got a bad rap because it did well in Ganashtra. Totally. So people were like, you know, had very lofty feelings. Yes. And then maybe three or four years ago, I feel like I said it on this podcast,

but I was like, I re-watched some of Benjamin Button and I think I kind of get it now, like in a deeper way. And I've been like metastasizing this Benjamin Button take for a while now. That is... I mean, we can unpack it at large right we should get into the making of the movie a little but i think it's almost like a pointedly an anti-gump yes it is it

is saying here's what it actually is to sort of tumble through time right right you know and gump addresses death but this is like no everything about being alive, unfortunately, is about death. It's not just this kind of like picker-esque where you just kind of like go through eras of whatever. It's like, no, we have a horrible World War II scene. And look, the scene in Gump that's the Vietnam scene is like there's death in that. But like, yeah, I feel like he's like, no, here's what's here's the darkness behind the sort of Gump Americana. I think the fundamental thing that's frustrating about this movie to watch for a lot of people is that the character is so passive. He is such a wallflower. The opposite of Gump where it's like, here's this ordinary man who's just like driven by the beat of his own drum and he marches through life and he positively impacts everything he touches. Every important moment has changed because of him.

And Benjamin Button's a character where, like, if you remove him from the movie, there aren't a ton of events that change radically. He's floating through life like most of us are. He witnesses stuff. He touches people. His impact is the emotional connections he makes with people briefly in passing. Yeah. But those people's lives

are not, like, changed by course of action by meeting him by and large, right? Outside of his daughter being born. Yeah. He he abandons his daughter which is the cruelest thing he does and i think that's the other part of it which is like um everything that seems unfintry about this movie being kind of like sappy it being sort of fantastical you know having this sort of like storybook quality that feels so against his like absolute detail-oriented realism cynicism whatever is like it's the framing device it is here we are in the middle of katrina right here's julia or am i giving a very very good performance yes a kind

of key performance she's awesome and a big a big movie for her to have been in at that point in her career totally yeah obviously she is literally Brad Pitt's love interest in Legends of the Fall, so it's kind of funny to have her play his daughter. And there's a lot of, like, Pitt career-carrying people bringing them back in this movie. I mean, he and Blanchard were

supposed to do The Fountain together, so this is sort of the realization of them spending years trying to find a movie to do together. Jared Harris used to be his captain. Fincher says he cast Jared Harris specifically because of his, like, one moment in Ocean's Twelve. Oh, wow. Yes. Wasn't Lost in Space?

That he, like, loved him in that. No. Well, he thought that was a documentary. No, that's why Fincher cast Matt LeBlanc. Yes. Yes, right. And then Matt LeBlanc showed up and Fincher was like,

you have the armor, right? You know Lacey Chabert plays the hummingbird in this movie, right? Yeah, and of course, and Blarp was the first AD. Yeah. Pitt recommended Tilda, although I think

because of post-production, this must have been shot before Burn After Reading, even though that came out first. Okay. Do you think if you're Tilda, did they have to sit Tilda down and be like, okay, so, you are going to be referred to as

plain as paper, looks-wise. Are you okay with that? Forky was like, what? If there's anything that Tilda Swinton is not... They do their best to make her seem dowdy, like, sort of in personality or whatever. But yeah, she's a very striking looking woman. I'm the first to say this.

And I had completely forgotten she was in the movie. Oh, really? Oh, that's the part I was looking forward to. Speaking of forgetting things, I have to preface this episode by saying, in a fit of, in a really misguided fit of peak, I decided after watching Benjamin Button that I needed to rewatch for the hundredth time

Brad Pitt's other somewhat misbegotten epic about death, Meet Joe Black. So if at any point I say something and you're like, Richard, no, that happens in Meet Joe Black, just, I apologize. Okay. Thank you.

Meet Joe Black, a film I am committed to someday covering on this podcast. One of the craziest performances. We're definitely going to cover it. We'll get there. Can I do it? I'm calling it now. Yeah, fine yeah done you're in shot call um the the julio ormond deathbed blanchett superstructure of this movie happening during katrina read that here diary over there is is the one section of the movie that is in like kind of the trademark finchery style it has no heightened storybook quality it feels very emotionally sparse right

and stripped washed out yeah right and i think ormond in the silences speaks very well this sort of history of their relationship right a mother who perhaps was always a little bit at arm's length was not cruel was not you know uh uh necessarily, but was a little bit unknowable. Yeah. Yeah. And it's that feeling that like. It was a later in life pregnancy. She probably.

Correct. It was not like dying to be a mother. I have not lost a parent, but I've lost people in my life. And there is that thing of just like either you lose someone unexpectedly and you're immediately overcome with the things you never got to talk about the things you never got to know or you're in this sort of position where someone's leaving you and you're trying to squeeze out everything you can you're trying to get some sense of resolution or some sense of understanding at the very least right and this movie is about like from that prism her trying to understand the life of a mother that has never really made sense to her.

And beyond that now, the introduction of a father character she never even knew. And it all has this heightened quality because it's like, it's not a memory play. It's like her reading her mother's diaries and trying to project. No, her father's diary. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Her father's diaries at her mother's behest trying to project an understanding of what these things must have looked like and i feel like when i hear stories about my children

my parents as children their childhood and especially when i was a child i almost picture them as like muppet baby versions of themselves where it's hard to think of them as an actual child i think of them as just an adult with a bigger head and a tinier body right you know and i'm not saying this movie is arguing this is not an actual truth but you could argue that it is like kind of a fanciful not to get all hassan minaj emotional truth right oh dear yeah but it's like her benjamin button does get anthraxed at one point in this movie we're trying to learn the story you know griff Griffin didn't actually grow up in New York City. I didn't. But he emotionally did. The real

Benjamin Button was played by Steve Ranicisi. Correct. That man. What's he up to? He told one lie. It was never part of his act. One easy white lie. He showed a lot of contrition. He backed off. That's all I'm saying i i can't believe how much

better i think he looks now in his handling of that entire situation he he did tell just the the one i mean that we know of obviously just but he did tell a lot in a way that was a little freaky i agree i mean it was long it was a long story it was long. It was a long story. It was long. Another long story is the curious case of Benjamin Button. That's true. My point is, it feels like this is sort of like theater of the mind, her trying to wrap her head around lives that she's learning about at the last second. Just before it's all how quickly memories become fiction. Yeah.

Because at a certain point, what you actually live through and experience has started to become the version of it that you tell in your head. Your brain changes things that you don't even realize. And then when other people tell you their things, I swear to God, this happened. This is my memory.

It was exactly like this. You're then now filling in, in your mind's eye, the version of what they're telling you is reality that's already a story that they tell themselves. And this sort of, like, structure of the movie is, like, that's the real film is Julia Orman at Cape Blanchett, and this is her trying to make sense of two lives that she didn't really know in her last glimpses.

Happening in the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina, because much like her mother's death in that entire life that remains something of a mystery to her, this whole city is about to be washed away. Yeah. This clock's going to get drowned. You know, like all of this eventually just sort of like goes off. Right. And it's like it's both not incredibly important and deeply sad. Yeah. Benjamin Button was not someone who changed the course of American history, but he had a life, and his life impacted her mother and resulted in her,

and they'll both be gone, and then it's just myth. Right, right. And sometimes the myth is something insane, like a man who was, a baby was born, an old man turned into a young teenager, whatever.

Right. But also, like, anything becomes distorted to that level of myth. My dad, who's an older gentleman, will tell us, you know, in a life, well, he was 49 when I was born. So he had a whole life. But he was 45 when he married my mom. So like whole life before then.

He was one of the first professors at UC Irvine. And he used to like drink martinis and smoke a pipe. And I'm like, there is no way that's actually real because it sounds like a myth. And it's like, no, because it's just so far in the past. Right. That like it's just like, was there really a baby that was born old like i don't know when you try to picture that version of your dad in your head does it feel any more absurd than the version of benjamin batman in the bathtub it's a story like you're right like if i

try to picture right stories from the past about my immediate family or whatever right i'm imagining a movie version of their lives. Yes. Right? Obviously. Yeah. I can't go see it myself. No, you can't.

Griffin. I accept your point. I can't. I watched this movie with the commentary, and there's the opening little kind of prologue to the story within the story of Elias Kodias and Mr. Cake and the clock. And he said that they screened it for audiences and they were just like,

I don't understand what this has to do with the movie. Is this going to pay off in some larger way? They didn't like that being seeded and then two hours and 45 minutes later being paid off in a way that's more thematic, that isn't like super plot oriented or whatever, right? And he said the shift was late in post-production. We added all the filters of the film grain and the pops and the crackles and the distortion and whatever.

Which looks so good. And once we did that, everyone was into it. Right. Because it was sort of like, well, this isn't real. This is a story you're being told. This is old. We're using the language of old film or whatever. And it's like important to do that tone

setting of like well here's basically the diary starting out with a fable that he heard that he's just taking on word that feels as abstracted to him as everything she's about to read about him recounting by by his own word his real life and what would it be to go backwards? But of course, he's not actually, I mean, he's living backwards in some ways, but he is moving towards death, same as everybody else. I think there's maybe points in this movie where characters who see him after a long time,

and they're like, oh my God, you're so young, don't think like, but they think that he might just kind of look that way forever or something. They don't imagine that there's an end to it and the fact that button dies before daisy yes is interesting but also the fact that he's not reversing time because i was alive for that part in a weird way look as scott fitzgerald i'm cracking the dossier well. Heard of this guy? Yeah. 1922. Love to pull the cord. The curious case of Benjamin Button.

Now you've cracked the voice. That is what he sounded like. It's, you know, published in Collier's. That was Trumbo, actually. Yeah, how wet were the keys on his typewriter? Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, how wet's the script? That's always the question.

Fitzgerald said the story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's. The fact that it was a pity the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. Youth is wasted on the young, et cetera. Yes, exactly. And so he submits this story. An anonymous admirer says to him, I read this story and I wish to say that as a short story writer you would make a good lunatic I have seen many pieces of cheese

In my life but all the pieces of cheese I have ever seen You are the biggest piece I hate to waste a piece of stationery on you But I will That's what that replies were like back then And then Zelda said lunatic don't mind if I do Wow

Where was this in his career this is well that's a great question and i will of course answer it by googling f scott fitzgerald's date of birth uh he would only have been like like not even 30 like i mean but then again he died when he was 44 so it's not but any of his it's after the sight of paradise which is his debut debut novelle which is a wonderful book yes uh and it's the same year as the beautiful and damned which is his difficult second album you know and then gatsby is 1925 but this is pre-gatsby it's pre-gatsby okay so he was how old when gatsby was written he was like you know 30 want to feel old? I have to go home. That's depressing. For me, not for him. Well, I mean, he had some depressing shit happen to him, too.

Such as he drank like a quart of whiskey every fucking hour. Until he melted. That's only depressing after a certain point. For a while, it's pretty fun. Sounds like a lot of fun, actually. 60 years later, Ray Stark, A producer Brings this story To Universal And in 1988

Is the fabled Frank Oz Martin Short Project So that's Probably right before Clifford Because Clifford is

Made in 1990 I think I think Clifford films In 89 Comes out in 94 So maybe When Benjamin Button Fell apart

Short was like But Clifford It kind of feels possible yes that short was like i gotta do something where i'm a you know young person the body of an old person or whatever you know um universal chairman casey silver so we have f and losing his damn mind yes yeah i'm just glad that clifford is coming up like if f coming up If he walked back Into our lives Scott Fitzgerald We're going to fire up a movie for you

I loved it Tear in his eyes This is where this art form was headed I always dreamed to write something this good I've always just wanted to say Mason He wants to say Mason He really does So want to say Mason. Well, he wants to say Mason. He really does.

So, Casey Silver has a next-door neighbor by the name of Robin Swaggord, a lady who wrote the 90s Little Women. She wrote Matilda. She wrote a pure masterpiece

with lightning called Practical Magic. Your favorite movie of all time all the day she wrote that the roof blew off her house from quality um also the kazan's mom yes yes right right right she is she's part of the right exactly right um and uh she gives that one to amblin that script that she writes and spielberg wants to make it with tom cruise uh yeah correct kathleen kennedy and frank marshall come aboard as producers would have been... Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall come aboard as producers.

Cruise would have been particularly bad Well, they wouldn't have had to digitally shrink him at all, which is nice. But the stilt's budget... Yeah, baby size as it is! Yeah. No, it's that thing of like,

Minor Report in 2002 was like the culmination of 10 years. Right, they've been circling. Of them circling and being like, it has to be the right thing. Spielberg decides instead to do some like bullshit too for jurassic park and schindler's list or whatever those are he was gonna make one benjamin button instead he does jurassic and schindler uh kennedy marshall then found their

production company they take this over to paramount and that is when fincher who has not even made alien 3 yet is shown this script uh So he... But the Slycord script originally is what he's shown. Correct. He liked it, but he said it was a beautiful script, but it hinged on the audience's affinity for and knowledge of jazz. Because this is part of Fitzgerald's, like, Tales

of the Jazz Age, and I imagine this original script might have been more indebted to the Fitzgerald story. Interesting. Oh, this is in a collection called Tales of the Jazz Age? age okay now it's often just printed with benjamin button on the cover and brad pitt's there his dick is out and you're like jesus so like jazz it's benjamin button's about the ages you don't look like right yes right right it's about the ages you don't live through right um so then it's like uh they're shopping this around and they are like fuck the real problem we have here is you would need to cast five actors yeah because you're gonna need to do this you know

you can't do this with visual effects the martin short version of it makes sense the second they push it towards drama right it requires some sort of at least and if you cast that many actors you're losing all the impact totally and and you can't bill it as a movie star movie you know it's like you can't get a talent in the same way uh agneska holland uh who did the secret garden signs on pretty much after that and she just had a big hit in the festivals she did i'm excited to see it uh what's it calling a green border border it is well sequel to green zone most of the directors and writers who are flirting with it at this point in time are people who worked on a lot of like august yes children's literature

adaptations yes you know you're like things where the sun is streaming through the trees i'm surprised karen wasn't involved after a little princess perfect sense obviously ron howard uh steps in but uh john travolta steps in with him i can only imagine how subtle that performance would have been well it would benjamin button would have smoked cigarettes the entire time and they wouldn't have needed wigs in the beginning he was gonna play him like edna turnblad and i think by the late 90s and you do hear this sometimes marshall and kennedy are like you know what this is just just one of those scripts that's really good on the page and it will never get made.

Unmakeable. Like, it's just, that's just what it is. Then Spike Jonze comes aboard, gets Jim Taylor, uh, uh, to rewrite the script.

Charlie Kaufman supposedly rewrote the script at one point. They turned it into more of a comedy, something quirky. Yes. Uh, who knows what that movie is. They never had an actor attached

right never and they just i guess they just took some shots at a script about a guy going backwards and is this in in the time between being john malkovich and aptation straight off of malkovich okay and it kind of makes sense that it's like after malkovich they're to their jones like what do you want like so there were our hottest was another one of those right five no one can crack this can't be done right you want to crack something else did uh kaufman write an actual script for this or just kind of like look at it rewrote this script but there's not much about like whatever that was eric roth is the first person post swikard to do like a full page one right go back to the adaptation, start over.

Right? Everyone else is building on this white card draft. He gets brought in to rewrite. Jones exits at that point. Yeah. Those who are not, like, a natural fit, I would say. No. But Eric Roth is really hot stuff still.

I mean, he remains hot stuff. He is a great screenwriter, in my opinion, even though Gump is not really what I... But, like, he a an a-list pro writer yes um even though he's written some boring ass shit probably one of the highest paid yeah him like steve's alien like you know people like that cap david cab it's that tier of the 90s guys who just yeah richard le gravine by the time he's done with it, the movie has no resemblance to Benjamin Button apart from it's called Benjamin Button. Sure, it's gotten so far.

It's about a backwards man. He calls the love interest Daisy as a tribute to the Great Gatsby. There's some sort of nanny in the short story, apparently, who Queenie sort of vaguely resembles. But not a huge part. And the mother, apparently, is in the story. Obviously not in this. And in this story, he is raised by his father. Yes. a huge part. And the mother apparently is in the story. Obviously not in this. And in this story, like, he is raised by his father.

Yes. Mr. Button. Yes. Yes. Whereas, obviously, you know. Roth had his mom get diagnosed with cancer while he was writing the script. His dad died a couple years after that. He's still working on the script.

He says, this movie is all about that shit. Like, about these, like, tragedies, you know, ordinary all about that shit like yeah about these like tragedies you know ordinary tragedies that like you go through in life you know trying to make sense of these things in retrospect yeah and i think that's the other thing it makes sense it took this long to get made because you're just like wow what a concept i could just imagine the movie that could be made off of that and then you're like what is the dramatic crux of this story it is fascinating that this man was born this way and lives you're like what is the dramatic crux of this story it is fascinating that this man was born this way and lives this way but what's the story and then you go like well

forrest gump similarly on paper the guy just moves forward in time if anyone's going to be able to crack this have the gump guy crack it and what they were lucky to find is that the gump guy rather than just like repeating himself was going through was in the midst of working through some shit and poured all of that directly into it. Um, 100%. Uh, that line where Cate Blanchett, old lady Cate Blanchett says, I'm curious. Rather than I'm afraid. He says that's something his mother said when she was in the hospital. Uh, Joan Didion's book, The Year of Magical Thinking.

Uh, she says, which is about her husband dying um you have to go to this land of grief whether you want to or not and go experience grief he's like that's what i'm thinking about here this is all in for i feel like this is all like backing up griff's case totally like you're the prosecutor right now sitting like a big smile on your face it's interesting to think about the movie in that context because you were saying griffin about how like he's such a cipher like this lead title character this movie is kind of a blank so it's really not a movie about him it's a movie about everyone around him totally right like and that's fascinating that's what's fascinating is that he is he's in so much more

of the film than everyone else right right right like it's not even like well blanchett's right there by his side the whole film so you can argue that she's actually the protagonist right she's missing for long swaths of the movie yeah she does not appear as like and she is played by younger actors like she's you know yeah although you know she dubbed all the younger actresses over right um but yes you see her caked under pounds of makeup then it's younger actresses with her voice it takes over an hour until she enters as kind of like pretty it's an hour it's i i checked the yeah time code yeah to you know 19 or whatever but still like her looking blanchett is l fanning to this day that's

a role she's doing yes and she's good at it she's great um but yeah but yes yes it is odd that like i i think in a certain way you need to view this movie through Julia Ormond as it is her interpretation of the story. But she's not in a ton of the film. He is the guy. It's about people beholding him and being like, I think the most crucial scene in the movie for me as someone who just turned 40 and is dealing with a lot of like pretty modeling like is that all there is you know middle-aged stuff um is her in the swimming pool saying like i hate i i don't i hate getting older and it's so much about her like beholding him and it's like here's a guy who is living what we would all dream of what if after all of the experience of adolescence i looked so much better in my 40s

than i did then you know or whatever it is and's like, but it's not enough, you know? And they kind of learn that through him. Oh, he's so lonely, whatever. It's not really about Benjamin Button's trajectory. No. At all.

No. And then it ends with her taking care of him. She's in the last, she's in, you know, the last 15 minutes of the movie and he's gone. He is gone.

There as a baby. He's a baby. Can we talk about the law? Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Fincher says it shows the fallacy and the idea that youth is wasted on the young. Right. Like, to reaffirm your point. Yeah.

Like, you know what I mean? And what you said, Richard, of like, if only I knew what I know now, then when I was in that body or whatever. It's like, when you get that place. He's an idiot. Yeah. His dumbest decisions happen when he's at his physical peak. The thing where people say like, man, if I could be 80 in the body of myself at 20. Right. What would really be like a selfish asshole? So not to direct the conversation, but like I think that one of the elephants in the room, why why this movie gets made fun of and became a meme and a joke is I'm curious what you guys think does the logic of this actually work no obviously it doesn't right but is that detrimental to it what do you mean by the logic like like obviously because the question is okay he's born a tiny old man why doesn't he die a giant baby right look here's the answer right that would that's the big question but baked within that is like obviously i wish

they had gone full-spirited like like that would be great like his his body gets younger i don't know i just love the room just imagine like walking down the street like the stay puff marshmallow guy that's yeah the final scene of this movie benjamin button stomping across central not only is he getting younger he's getting a lot julia ormond looks out the window and he's just like lumbering toward her. I'll stop Katrina. Yeah. No. He actually broke

the levies unfortunately. He has to become a baby. Obviously. Yes. Because that's the only way we can handle this. Right. We can handle

an old man baby at the beginning because babies already look a little bit like old people. But that's sort of the weird logic thing as you said is like they make this choice to not have him be the old man with a long beard being like why do i get to leave this place right right they make the choice

to have him be a wrinkly baby right which at that point everyone's like i haven't seen a baby that looks like this but it could be like progeria it could be yes there are conditions that exist in the world right you. You also, right, exactly. Like he would have been seen as freakish in some way maybe, but it's not just like, Oh my God,

like real science of just, you know, ailments, conditions, diseases that make people age rapidly, or at least the illusion of it. Right. Right. You're like,

what's weird is that he like gets younger and hotter. And then you get to that point where You're like, what's weird is that he, like, gets younger and hotter. And then you get to that point where you're like, and then what happens? Does he, like, turn into sperm? Like, is he... Right. The... Where does life begin?

Actually, Griffin, I want you to answer that political question. They very wisely do not answer that question. But even the giant baby thing, right? Like, if you were actually treating this as hard science, right? What should happen is whenever he's at his, like, physical tallest, right?

At that point, his brain should start, like, going down. Right. But in the adult body. Right. It doesn't make sense that he would start shrinking

in that same way. I know that, like, old people get smaller. Yeah, but not, they don't become... Right. And, like, I think the thing is they they don't become right and like i think the thing is they add the dementia thing is like oh it's like it's like a baby yes but like our old

people with dementia really playing with blocks like you know like like benjamin maybe i don't know i think they just skip through this i also think that's the other thing he's getting at is it's like those are the two most similar states or when you're at your absolute oldest your absolute youngest yeah Yeah. Yeah. For me, the one that really got it watching at this time that really stuck in my head was when he's probably physically in his, uh, sixties,

seventies, but like an adolescent in, in mind is when he goes to the brothel and the woman's like, whoa! You really wore me out. It's like, no, but he's still physically old. I know he might be... I just don't know where the physiognomy... I just don't know how that all works

and maybe it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You have to accept... But I think back in the day, people made fun of it because of the giant baby question. Maybe Ferdinand Gianni had the routine that was like, let's put an old man turned into baby. What if Brad Pitt old man baby? Like, I'm just like,

yes, I'm going to make fun of this. Kumail had the routine of like, what do you mean you've never been to a doctor? People need to study you. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, re the visual effects. Are you guys aware of this commercial the orville redenbacher commercial yes yep was this a super bowl commercial i think it might

have been it was 2007 i think it was early 07 i remember it was either it was it would have been the oscars or the super bowl or some event like that that I was watching with my family. I think even in a party setting with like other family friends. I think there's maybe one other one where he's like at a table or something. This was done by Digital Domain as proof of concept for this movie. That commercial comes out. Okay, I see. This is where I remember reading this article that was in the New York Times.

And it looks perfect. I think the first of these aired in 06. It said 07, but I mean, you know. There was like a full campaign, but I'm at some family, friends, sitting around watching TV. That ad comes up. Everyone goes like, oh.

Like it was similar to that feeling of that like uneasy ad where they made Christopher Reeves walk again in the 90s. Do you remember that ad? Oh, jeez, that's cool. That played during the Oscars, and it was about, like, medical advancements, and it just felt a little ghoulish. Yeah.

Or the, like, Fred Astaire for the vacuum commercial. Fred Astaire dancing with the vacuum. It was in that mode where it's like, what are they doing here? And I was so perplexed by it, and then I think I read on Slashfilm or whatever a week later,

like, you want to hear something weird? David Fincher directed that commercial. Right. And everyone's like, what the fuck is this? And or whatever a week later, like, you want to hear something weird? David Fincher directed that commercial. And everyone's like, what the fuck is this? And then it came out of like, yes, he has used this commercial, this bizarre thing of like, why? I know Orville Redenbacher was the spokesperson. He was a likable on-camera personality during the heyday. But no one was like, gotta bring him back.

The brand's been dying without him as the spokesperson. Why are you investing this much money and this much tech into it and the answer was he was like i'm basically stealing money from orville redbacher to figure out whether this film is makeable or not which is interesting because obviously in panic room fincher's doing an end fight club all those kind of camera digital like we're gonna go inside the wires or whatever but i don't think of him as like a zemeckis no well like he's not but this is like a Zemeckis. No. Like he's not. But this was his kind of

Zemeckis-y going back to the Forrest Gump thing. His like big Zemeckis project. It's obviously, I think there are people who literally think Robert Zemeckis

made this movie. Like, you know, like they have to be told. They have to be sat down and told. It's David Fincher. David Fincher. And they must be told.

Zemeckis did make Mank though, right? Yes, he did. Right. I mean, the guy. He went back in time and this is Grandpa. For they must be told. Zemeckis did make Mank, though, right? Yes, he did. I mean, the guy. He went back in time, and this is his grandpa.

Fuck Mank's mom. He's got a DeLorean. Yeah. First honor in business. I go fuck Mrs. Mank. We just have to establish for anyone listening, yes, Robert Zemeckis went back in time.

Yes. He had sex with Mank's mom. This is hard science. It's fact. This is hard science. It's fact. This is in the congressional record. He was going to be called Zank, but then they said that's kind of ugly. Oh my goodness.

No, you are right, but that's part of it. A friend of the podcast, Drew McQueen, he was saying to us, like he remembers the scuttlebutt at this point in time. This is one of those great unmade scripts.

And even when the Roth draft came in, which Gary Ross almost did. Gary Ross was at some point under consideration for this job, which makes sense. It's got Pleasantville-y vibes. Like, it's, you know, it makes sense. But even at this point, we're like, computer graphics have advanced. They were like, I don't know if you can pull this off. You know, it's cutting edge. Post Gollum was the first time where they were suddenly like all these scripts that we used to think were unmakeable.

Maybe the tech is there. And even still, people were like uneasy about it because it's like it's the main character. It's the whole movie. He's got to go through 20 different states, all this sort of shit. And and and the scuttlebutt was like fincher might have finally cracked this but i do think in that way that's more often the like the zemeckis peter jackson what becomes of angley trap of like i need to make this movie to pioneer the technology to hand off to a generation of filmmakers is not usually how fincher worked i don't think he has that sort of like um promethean

vision of his career like No. Yeah. No. And he's a big nerd. He is. Yeah. And I've heard tell of him like emailing other filmmakers with like, hey, I got a new camera. Like, if you want to fuck around with it, like come over. Like that kind of shit. Yeah.

He's also, look, he talks a lot about how like. My mom said you could come over. Just sort of like. Getting pizza. The rise of like 90s, early 2000s auteurs he's like i think that really comes out of how robust the music video industry was for so long where there were stupid amount of money going around for filmmakers to cut their teeth on in a way that was more creative and longer form than commercials and and with a little more freedom but you got to

experiment with all this different technology where like current day filmmakers will talk about that when todd field isn't making a movie for 15 years and he's directing car commercials he's like i go into it saying this is my excuse to try out this this camera this lens this fucking yeah totally maybe this isn't creative expression but i'm like building muscles on something whereas music videos it also was creative expression and so these guys some of them were all style over substance but they all were able to hit the ground running somewhat when they started making movies and fincher smartly in this situation goes like i need to find a commercial i can use to cut my teeth for this film in the same way now did he

also direct that six flags commercial with the old man dancing? Well, Benjamin Button's in that, of course. Oh, okay. The real guy. Because Benjamin Button is based on the real Benjamin Button. And that's who's in the Six Flags. That's the real guy. He would catch the Venga bus home every day

down Bourbon Street. Ben, ask me how many flags there were over Texas. Griffin, how many flags there were over Texas. A streetcar named called Vanga. Griffin, how many flags were there? Six, but they look a lot bolder. Oh.

I've been to Six Flags. Those flags don't look too bold. They're pretty bold. I don't think anyone's cleaned them in a while. They're bold flags. Look, obviously,

this film's shot in New Orleans right after Katrina. They thought that Katrina would ruin their chances of making it in New Orleans. Instead, New Orleans was like, please come. Like, we want people here. Ushering in a real era. Yes.

It's one of several things that Brad Pitt remains in litigation over, deep litigation. But he was one of the stars who, in the wake of Katrina, was like, we need to do what we can to revitalize this place. And so it was his big push i believe to be like i want to set it there and i want to film there actually film there it was originally going to be set in baltimore right uh but then david simon was like stay off my turf yes uh no uh eric roth fincher read the similarities to eric roth instead of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances i thought of benjamin as an extraordinary man in ordinary circumstances just to sort of reinforce what you guys were saying uh and uh you know he's like the movie's experiential there's no backstory like it's it's mundane you know there's kisses hangovers

like you get dumped and all that stuff but like the the only thing that's crazy really is that he's he backwards man wait the part of fincher that's obsessed with process and how things are done and depicting the actual process on camera rather than doing the movie version of it comes through and being like the process of this man's life is all the shit that happens you know it's all these little chance encounters and periods he goes through and all of that. And it puts as much weight in some ways on a ship crashing into a U-boat in the middle of the sea as it does these happy years we spent sleeping on a mattress in an apartment in New Orleans. It's all of it. Yeah. And Pitt's other huge thing is I want to play as much of this person as I can. Like, do not hand it off to other

people how much is it is him as the old mate like right like it's his face it's body doubles and is he going like this or and they're kind of shrinking him or is that like they had they had multiple body doubles right and then it was a lot of him sitting in a chair surrounded by a hundred cameras his face painted totally green rather than having the dots, and he would act it all out. Because he talked about, like, he hired different actors at different ages, different body types and whatever. And one of the guys who's sort of playing the brothel age Benjamin

was an older man who was, like, in his 70s but had mime training. And he was, like, the guy was a really good performer because his background was in miming his motions were like too exaggerated he put too much of a point on them right and pitt's a pretty still actor and especially with the way he was doing it in the volume or whatever uh the facial expressions didn't match so we had to go back and reshoot stuff so yeah it's it's body doubles that he's then doing his face. Because they even say the was his first scene

his first time on set with Taraji P. Henson is the scene where he comes back home. Sure. And he's an adult. Right. Because he was never present on set. He was on set for these scenes. Right. Right. Right.

He was off stage going, seven years old. And Brad Pitt thinks that's what old men sound like? I mean, we don't even see Benjamin smoking. Well, actually, why would that make sense, though? Because he was born with that voice. You're looking for logic where there are problems. I mean, the voice is great. He should start smoking when he's a baby.

He should come out. Mr. Button should look into the crib, and this little wrinkled thing is like smoking a little baby. That's when he should. He should come out with, like, like the guy should, Mr. Button should look into the crib and this little wrinkled thing is like smoking a little cigarette. Yes. That's what it should be. But yeah, no,

I know another thing Fincher said is that he wanted, I think down to him being a child, you know, a tween, a kid, a baby,

it's still to be pit digitally modified. And he was like, we ran out of budget. I'm basically the last 12 years were more than we could spend. But even the last time when he walks into the dance studio and briefly meets his now somewhat grown daughter, um,

it's interesting that they choose to do that with light instead of, cause I thought, cause I had forgotten this until I watched it now and was like oh I remember being disappointed because I was like oh they're going to digitally make him

Thelma and Louise Brad yeah River Runs Through It Brad that's going to be so exciting yeah and then it was just like oh no it's the same guy just a different haircut

and he's kind of in shadow right maybe that was a budget thing it's such a D.H. but yeah but yes but maybe if you're a big movie star you're like

I don't really want to remind people of what I looked like 10 years ago totally i am at perfection now well that's the other thing it is like the the movie has to be about this one moment of the two of them in the middle yeah so you do kind of have to argue that the age he was when he shot this film was his perfect age right even if he's going to look more angelic as he ages down i think it's kind of his perfect age i think it is i think i mean like or whatever also have you seen me joe black recently that was pretty good age but like you know when when it suddenly turns into a fucking luxury watch commercial and he's like you know riding a yacht around with sunglasses he gets very stylish

yeah this is the fucking best. I remember Fincher saying that in interviews at the time of, like, this is the great magic trick of the movie is we spend, like, $100 million on special effects for the first hour and a half of the movie. The effect, yes.

And then the effect is the moment you finally get to pull everything off of him. Put on another jacket on it. And just have him walk in and go, like, holding shit. With a great haircut. Or when he goes to see Daisy in the Parisian hospital.

Yeah. And he's wearing this, like, kind of caramel-colored overcoat, and you're like, Jesus Christ, like, Benjamin Button has good style. He's a cool fucking guy. I mean, honestly. I mean, would Chewby, if he did all that?

I think his tugboat look is his best look, though. Yeah. Sort of stringy, long hair, and the cap. And the commentary Fincher referred to him as looking like Barry Levinson. There you go. And when he's born, he kind of looks like Sam. Hell yeah.

Okay, wait. I want to say a couple things. Taraji P. Henson. Obviously, her first appearance is in Big Baby Boy, which you discussed on this podcast, her first screen appearance. But it was Hustle & Flow that puts her on Fincher's radar. She's amazing in that movie.

Singleton really made a concerted effort to try to single-handedly make her a movie star. And he does Baby Boy, puts her in Hustle & Flow as a producer, puts her in Four Brothers. It doesn't totally stick, even though I think certain wise people were ahead of the curve on her.

This is the movie where she finally like lands you can you know ask a bunch of questions about like she gave three great performances in john singleton movies playing very different characters the second she plays an old housekeeper mother kindly mom yes yes right and the type of role that oscars would been paying attention to for 100 years years, basically. She is good. She's such a warm, like, wonderful presence. Yes. I mean, him calling his shots on her and Mahershala,

and then also, you think, this is Jared Harris a year before Mad Men. He had done a lot of work up until this point. Jared Harris, right, is a guy without a doubt. The year after this is the next stage of his career that I think levels up. Yeah. And even Elle Fanning is a pretty early pick doubt. The year after this is the next stage of his career that I think levels up. Yeah. And even Elle Fanning is a pretty early pick.

Yeah, definitely. He's got like four casting choices in this movie that have paid off. Who plays the old lady in the hospital bed with Julia Orman? God kidding. Is she good at that old stuff? She's fine.

It's the most risible part of the movie in a way just because like it feels like something from a UCB sketch. Let me tell you a story. That door over there, do you mind

opening it? It's very home for Purim, you know? 100%. I do think it's maybe the most impressive old age makeup

I've ever seen. The makeup is really good. The makeup is astonishing. They also wisely keep her basically always prone. She's always lying down. And so like you don't have to deal with her moving around too much to complicate things but i look at the neck and

i'm just like that's astonishing yeah but you what about what about the neck the back sorry and then two other body parts i'm not gonna mention by name no um yes yes this is the thing that gets taraji the the oscar nomination and finally kind of puts her on on the path in hollywood's eyes um mahrishali uh credited by his uh longer which i used to when i because i'd already seen him in a few things before this this was definitely the first i saw him because i remember thinking that guy's good and then seeing the name of the end credits and going holy it's so ridiculous to write to say this but yes i his name being so long was so interesting to me he actually just done a lot of television like he'd popped up on crossing jordan and csi and stuff like that right was he on 4400

that's the one yes that's another one he was on that for years. And he doesn't shorten his name until, like, Place Beyond the Pines? Like, years and years later. Like, Mockingjay, he's in that. He's talked about how it was a point of pride for him that when people said, of course you have to shorten your name, he dug his heels in. And that he ultimately said, like, I don't need to change my name to Bob Smith. Right. But this might be a little self-destructive right and it is wild that like he he chops the final 25 of his first name off and immediately has the transcendent year where people are like who the fuck is this guy but i

mean look fincher puts him from this into house of cards which is one of the things that definitely levels him up you know this directly leads to his like full anointment he's so good in this movie he's i mean yeah it's great he's one of he he's always good it we talked about in a different episode recently i forget why how uh absurd it is that he won the green book oscar but he's also just like undeniably one of the best living actors in my money yeah he is even if i'm not always excited by everything he does, he is... Well, the thing about him in Green Book is he's really good in it.

He's really fucking good in it. So is Viggo. I have no complaints about his performance in that movie. It's just a lead performance it's the same to give to him that quickly after. Yeah, and also he took

Sam Elliott's Oscar away. And Richard E. Grant's Oscar. Those are the two. You had two guys... Two, like, lifelong character actor guys. Flip it to... Wait, is it true that you guys are gonna retape the power

of the dog episode with Sam Elliott yeah he's got a lot of thoughts it's gonna be two minutes long yeah I have more to say fellas the fuck is this no we're gonna retape it with Vigo in character from Green Book yeah fuck is he doing? I don't know what he would say.

Mouthful of pizza. But yeah, no, Mahershala, he's great in this. And like, I don't know, the commentary was interesting. Fincher talked more about the psychology of these two characters than any other characters in the movie.

And I think it's because like the first chunk of it you do see a lot of it through their eyes benjamin's so passive when he's young he's still understanding the world that they are the characters you're really relating to at the beginning and he was like this thing of like she has a better position in the house you know yeah that she holds the power that they are together but they live separately yeah you know that there's sort of like this this um this very kind of modern couple in a lot of ways and that he is disapproving i mean there's i forget what his line is, but like, he's so freaked out by Benjamin Button as a baby. Yeah.

And so wary of her taking him in of like, what's this going to be the next 20 years of your life? Right. What's this kid going to turn into? And made on, like, made like in a split second. Babies on the stairs. Do you need to burden yourself with all of this? But she is kind of like, he could die tomorrow, too. Like, she does have that, yeah.

And the second she says that, he basically is like, I'm 100% in. You know, he tries to talk her out of it. And I think that, like, a lesser piece of writing, a more obvious piece of writing, would have him be, you know, an early quarter of the movie antagonist. Yes. Like, Mama loved me, but this guy was always kind of whatever. And that's the thing. Like, when she has a child, you know, when she announces she's pregnant,

and you're briefly like, oh, is this going to kind of play some sort of jealousy note? And it's like, no, it's just sort of a moving on. Like, it's another signpost for him that it's time to leave the coop a little bit. But the other thing Fincher talks about is, like, a lot of Benjamin's passivity as a character, him being the sort of observer wallflower.

His button-in-in-the, you know. Right, yes, his deep button-in-in-in. Right, yes. His deep button-in-in. Him being seven but looking a lot older. Is that, like, he was well-raised. Like, he is, like,

a kind of old-fashioned southern gentleman of, like, proper manners. Right? He is sort of, like, polite to the point of absurdity. And he said

when he would screen the movie for Paramount, they'd be like, why is like taraji so mean she's playing all these scenes so mean and he's like she's not mean she's like firm in a way that she's a good parent not like a tough love way but she's like really trying to teach him the world and he said it wasn't until the scene where he goes back and sees her again and she's so warm and loving that they were like why could she have been like this the whole movie

it's like because now she doesn't need to raise him and no parent is like that all the time you know like it's that's a reunion that's a happy no that's his point he was like yeah it's really crucial that the two of them are great parents yeah and that the time spent with them the beginning of the movie sets up how this guy behaves for the rest of the film and that everything surrounding them i mean minus phyllis somerville kind of yelling at him about being under the table with Elle Fanning, which is a great Dave Matthews album. Did I hit that joke? But he has this wonderful education of being around old people. And it's mostly like, you know, age isn't anything to be afraid of or whatever.

But also, yes, it is sad. And he gets this incredible perspective on death. They give him perspective. And then the rest of the movie is in some ways him teaching that to people in the audience and people he meets. Yeah.

You know, the way he consoles Jared Harris as he's dying on a ship is not like, no, you're going to be fine. The helicopter's coming. He's like, no, you're going. Yeah, it's true. But like, there's a nice place waiting for you.

You know, he has this like really rational view of all this that is because of the upbringing and you would expect the beginnings of this movie to be like house of horrors yeah you know raised in a in a you know gothic orphanage and it's like the complete opposite of that like uh 10 years ago it must have been i went to a fucking rosh hashanah dinner uh with my great aunt uncle who was very close to growing up who had moved to florida by this point and it was them and their friend who had also just moved into this retirement community with them all three of these people are dead now right and uh my great aunt uncle were together for like 65 years 70 years. And this guy's wife, who they had grown up with both of them

in the same neighborhood, had, like, just died. And my great-uncle, very matter-of-factly, say, like, and this is Jerry. Jerry's one of our oldest friends. He grew up around the block, and his wife was Cynthia, and she went to school with us.

And he just looked at me, and he went, she was the love of my life. I will never care about anyone as much as I cared about her. She was the most extraordinary woman I ever knew, and she died six months ago, and I've been so sad since. Can you pass the mashed potatoes? There you go.

And it was like one run-on sentence. Yeah. And it was said with emotion, but it was also just like that point where people get to that point in their lives, and you're like, you lose the most important people every day. They're just all dropping off like flies. Yeah yeah but you imagine that happening if you are in preschool right or in grade school and if you're like quote-unquote friends once a week a friend gets

trucked away and benjamin button is a child he has the mentality of a child but he's growing up in a retirement home where everyone else has this like them's the brakes. People get carted off. Yeah. And he's it teaches him the the sort of I don't know the ephemerality. Yeah. And it's all it's not it's not Veda Saltenfuss and my girl work, you know, growing up in the fucking funeral home. That's a little too extreme. I also think that it doesn't curse him. It doesn't make him dark for all of his like innate sort of you know high-mindedness or sort of like evolved view of death i like that the movie also in little ways like kind of it's

like he's kind of annoying like like because us who are aging the other direction are like okay yeah great we get it like it's nothing to be scared of but it is scary yes yes and i think that's part of why daisy who is you know a really well-drawn kind of blithe artist character, is also just like a little bit like, get out of my face, man. Like, I can't have this. She's not ready for him. You're too enlightened. Right. And I think we all, a lot of us aren't.

But look, my baby was not born 80 years old. I'm willing to admit this. Born baby-ish. She was born baby-ish. But like, there are those early scenes, too, where he's just by her bed and he's so helpless. It does remind me of that. You know, it's it is so universal. Just like, you know, the bond you have just caring for that.

Oh, God, this movie like really fucked me up at the end. So another thing Fincher kept saying in the commentary, because we're getting to the Daisy meeting. Sure. kept saying in the commentary because we're we're getting to the daisy meeting sure is like my read on this movie is fundamentally that this is not a story about them being destined for each other no because that would be ludicrous these are not star-crossed lovers he's always loved her yes but that's a little different but that's what he said he said it's basically two people who whether they know it or not almost non-verbally made a promise to each other when they were young and it's about how this promise ties them in their minds to each other but it's not that i think they could only be together or they were destined to always be together and i think paramount really

wanted that for it to be this like epic faded romance and he kept on pushing back up jenny and jenny running across the reflecting pool sells it that way as best they can with them on the poster and all that but like when we get to the scene paris the accident the sort of butterfly effect of her legs getting uh fucked up at the car crash and everything they were like see this is what we're saying do this the world is bringing them together and it's like yeah but when he goes to visit her she's like get out of here right i'm not ready for you yeah right yeah right and it is that thing of like there's something she is an old soul right It's like, yeah, but when he goes to visit her, she's like, get out of here. Right. I'm not ready for you yet, man. Right. Yeah. Right. And it is that thing of like, there's something, she is an old soul, right?

Which is helped by the fact that you have an adult woman voicing it over Dakota Fanning. Right. Elle Fanning, excuse me. They recognize something in each other. They have some connection. But it is that like, it's like the ex you never got over. Or not even, it's the person where the circumstances never lined up right and can you ever go home again you know because going back going to him is in her view an admission of defeat yeah and defeat is given to her not by her

own choice you know unfortunately but even then she's like i don't you know no you're totally right like he is kind of too familiar in a way. And I think a thing that, like, crystallizes the fact that they're going to be hung up on each other forever, not that they're destined together, but that they're sort of, like, stuck being fixated on each other, is Phyllis Summerfield's reaction to them being under the table, where it's, like, an incredibly innocent thing to them that is treated with such disgust and paranoia and disdain, where they were like well if you're making a big deal out of this what is actually going on here right you know and

i think it's interesting because i feel like i mean obviously in forrest gump he doesn't really have the capacity to understand he he's you know he understands jenny in a way and that he loves her in a way but i think in this movie i feel like i would have expected um kind of love to re-enter his life but like he pursues her in a very direct way it's not like we met up and like oh how you been oh how oh i see you're dating this guy like okay he's like up front he's like no i came here to think i thought i was going to sweep you off your feet like i like how direct that is but also it's fascinating that every time she's kind of leading the scene and then there's the moment where she goes i'm sorry i've been talking about myself all night you haven't said anything he's like well i like to listen and then when she

finally passes the baton to him he's like here i stand before you once again asking for a hand right right she's like fuck off and he disappears for another seven years I think she's such a well-drawn character I mean Blanchett turns out can act I mean we all are in the arts I fucking know those people who are like oh my god it's so good to see you and then talk for 30 minutes

and have not even asked you if they can hang your coat up I think she gets that about that character exactly where was she about to go? Was she about to do Sydney Theatre Company? CB? Yeah hang your coat up. I think she gets that about that character. Really? Where was she about to go? Was she about to do Sydney Theatre Company? CB? Well, she's just coming off her Oscar for The Aviator Golem. Right. And her near

win for I'm Not There. That's the year before this. The year before this? Yeah. Because Aviator is, of course, 04, right, and then I'm Not There is 07. Kind of astonishing she didn't get nominated for this i remember especially because so oscar rich yeah but she didn't she didn't have the buzz like people it's big it's because this movie disappointed quote unquote i just remember thinking this performance in particular was undeniable and it's equally fascinating that pitt got nominated for such a passive character that

they usually don't go for but it's the it's the special effects of the thing it's it's partly that but it's also partly not to be an Oscar like you know overread or whatever like Pitt had not been nominated since 12 Monkeys 12 Monkeys that was time people thought was kind of right but it was sort of time to be like yes yes forgot they had done that together already at this point they had yeah they had I mean almost everyone in this movie battle was what 2006 yeah uh and kate you know had won an oscar and been nominated multiple times and i think they're probably like yeah we can give you a pass like frozen you know um melissa leo for frozen river is the surprise nominee that year which is a good nom uh-huh uh angeline halfway jolie jolie changeling right julian changeling she's sort of

sneaking in because that movie it had kind of like up and down buzz that's the slot that i thought should have been blanchett's i think so well the thing about the budget is that up until re-watching it that movie's not good she's not i recommend re-watching it i recommend re-watching it beginning of the railroading it's his first movie about railroading i'm not kidding i'm honestly really serious really the train is pulling into the station because i was like well he loves stories about railroading and then i was like wait no this is the beginning eastwood's love affair with railroad ease she got railroad she fucking got railroad they gave her a boy

that didn't have a foreskin. And she was like, my kid was uncircumcised. That's the other reason you like this. He probably got circumcised. You like that it's a foreskin thriller. It's just so crazy that she's like, my kid had a different penis. And they're like, penis has changed all the time, you crazy old lady.

Pulled it out. He's got Benjamin Dick's disease. I don't know. Like, that's how railroaded her ass was. Yeah. Well, she couldn't even be like,

look, the one fundamental thing with guys where it's one or the other. It's, it's, you know, it went from a Y to an N,

you know? Uh-huh. And she got railroaded, man. By fucking Burn Notice. Burn Notice is her. She got railroaded. Sorry By fucking Burn Notice Burn Notice is her I was gonna say about the Blanchett She's good in this, the Blanchett

It's just kind of like, it's Cate Blanchett, she's fine I'm sorry, it's Hathaway, it's Jolie, it's Leo The winner that year is Go ahead Why am I not thinking of who this is? This is the Slumdog year Is it Winslet? Oh, it's the reader

And then who's the fifth nominee? I'm sorry, Hathaway, J year. Is it Winslet? Oh, it's the Reader. Yes. And then who's the fifth nominee? Sorry, I'm sorry. Hathaway, Jolie, Leo, Winslet. Sorry, where the fuck are the Oscars? I just had them. Jeez Louise. They went away because I got so pumped up about getting railed. You were saying something, you want to get railed by Jeffrey Donovan?

Oh, well, the fifth nominee. What? I have some doubts about this nomination. Oh, it's your least favorite performer. It's Meryl Streep in that. But I mean, she was pretty much guaranteed that nom. That is not a field that you're like, well, Blanchett was going to be on the outside because the competition was so stiff. Maybe it's not a field that you would say that about, but there's certainly big names. Sure.

You know, like Jolie, Streep, these are big names. A couple huge names with soft nominations. But Blanchett didn't even get a Golden Globe. Do you want to know the Golden Globe nominees? Yes, please. And Drama for 2008?

It's four of the ones we just said and then kristen scott thomas doubts and comedy oh and i know i loved it was i've loved you so long right oh that's sort of a surprise the french language one yeah yeah has this had an oscar buzz done that movie yet they should that's a quintessential david can you imagine if kristen scott thomas directed a bad movie one of the worst fucking. One of those things were two minutes and I was like, uh-oh. David and I just got back from Toronto. But then you said she comes in at the end and does ten minutes and proves herself as the Kristen Scott Thomas of acting?

The whole point, the whole, I can just imagine, this is Kristen Scott Thomas in a movie called North Star. She directed it. It's clearly about her own life. And we're all rooting for Mere to Toronto. I love Kristen Scott Thomas. Yeah, she's great. And it's got Scarlett Johansson, who she's now worked with three times, Horse Whisperer,

Other Berlin Girl, and this. Wild. Wild. But it's nice that they clearly have a lifelong connection. Sienna Miller and unnamed British actress

who's very good, whose name I forget. It's Emily Beecham. Emily Beecham, yes. A Cannes Best Actress winner. Poor Scar Jo is doing an English accent next to the Sienna.

Playing an aircraft carrier captain? Correct. A gay aircraft carrier Actress winner. Poor Scar Jo is doing an English accent next to the Sienna and Beecham. Playing an aircraft carrier captain? Correct. A gay aircraft carrier captain. Normal. Of course. But like every time she has to, you know, Sienna Miller is good. And Beecham is good

and they are speaking in there and then Scarlett Johansson will be like, oh, bloody hell, mates. And I'm just like, oh God, this is so rough. And then Kristen Scottomas plays their mom her own mother yes i see you know and i can just see her on set being like yes no i'll just i'll be over here i'll you know i'll have a couple scenes every time she's fucking there's a hydro cannon on her black back yeah that's what you said he said she's just hydro blasting everyone

off the screen she's so good yeah i also, you're just dying in this movie, so her just being kind of funny, you're like, thank God, a professional has arrived. God, that movie stunk. Did you see it? No, because I heard it was bad. Fucking Katie Rich brought me to it.

The one tiff mistake I made was that one. Well, never listen to her. No, that's not true. She told me to see His Three Daughters, and I wept like a baby. I also did. Anyway, Chris, it's got Thomas. She told me to see his three daughters and I wept like a baby. I also did. Anyway, Chris, it's Scott Thomas. What else, Golden Globes?

Oh, that's it, though. They put Hathaway in drama. Oh, who was in comedy? Oh, it was Angelina for Dickswap. No, excuse me. Wasn't it Winslet in lead lead for revolutionary road and then reader for support that's right correct but still it's a winslet hathaway jolie streep yeah and then chris and scott thomas and then melissa leo sneaks in okay uh which is that's a good movie she gets

the um right wood river um no frozen river wind river i'm shaky no frozen river is a good movie i mean she she, she's excellent. Is Melissa Leo still running drugs across the Canadian border? During the strike, yeah. Well, I mean... She's got to earn a living. Jesus.

Wow, she just does... Melissa, here's my pitch. Yeah. Melissa Leo in a Liam Neeson-style action thriller. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

You finally joined me on Equalizer Island, been watching the Equalizer movies. Melissa Leo's throwing a heat. She is. She's good. And there's one action scene she has in two that you can tell she's excited that she's like, I finally get to do one of these. You leave that wanting more. Yeah.

And she's hard bitten. But in that movie, she's wearing the medical glasses from the big short. Yes. And she's also wearing the consider fur coat. That's the costume. Yes. And her dodecahedron costume from the big short. Yes. And she's also wearing the consider fur coat. That's the costume. Yes. And her dodecahedron costume from Oblivion. She plays dodecahedron in that movie.

She plays the thing from Out of This World. Remember that show? No. Oh, yeah. Curious case of Ben Hemmon Button. Okay, so he old little. He makes a connection with Daisy. He's star old and little. Yeah. He old little little he makes a connection with daisy he started he started

a little yeah he old little he makes the connection with daisy um he uh meets various people such as ot yes right right that's the guy who kind of opens up his world uh who's the first person to take him out of the old people's home, basically. Right? Like, they go to a place. He tests out what it is to have people regard him. Right. And look at him a bit askance, but also it's like, well, okay. Right. And it helps that, you know, OT is a little fellow, right?

Yes. Right. But he's comfortable in his own skin. Right. Yes. And he does the thing with the kids where he, you know, he startles them And it's cute Takes him to a brothel for the first time Where he by pure happenstance

Sees Mr. Button Well Mr. Button sees him And says that might be my Weird ass That might be my old man 15 year old Going into that lady's room I'm sharing a wall with some 85 year old who fucks like a 15 year old.

That might be my son. This movie is crazy. This movie's insane. It's fundamentally so crazy. That's why it's so funny that it is this like lovely, treacly movie. Yeah. That it's also a movie where this,

this, my friends, was a poster. This was a poster. This was a poster. This, this, the butt poster. Baby butt poster. A wrinkly baby butt. There you go.

Doesn't that make you want to see a movie? Because the main poster was just Blanchett and Pitt looking hot as hell. Just their two faces with like Vanity Fair portraits. Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like wasn't the hummingbird in a lot of the marketing.

It was. I feel like I remember. Here's the thing Fincher said that I thought was interesting. He was like, people were like, Eric broth trying to do the, the feather thing again with the hummingbird can't get out of his own way. And he's like,

the hummingbird is the exact opposite of the feather. The feather in Forrest Gump is this like magical creation. This thing that in theory has no mind of its own, that blows in the wind and touches everything. The Humboldt has its own agency. Yeah, exactly. It is not ending up here by chance. It's on a mission. It's making infinity with its wings.

Right. Yeah, yeah. But can we admit that Eric Roth should open a suit restaurant called Eric Broth? Yes. If he hasn't already. David, when have I ever disagreed on that point? From the day I met you. Hello, I'm David Sims.

I think Eric Roth should open a soup restaurant called Eric Roth. I agree. Let's have a podcast. Wait, no, can I get that clean one more time? Eric Roth should open

a soup restaurant called Eric Broth. Great, perfect. Yeah, exactly. Eventually, okay, look. Yeah. He fuck, he meet Daisy.

Oh, that's what I want to say. That's what I want to say. Sorry. That, okay, look. Yeah. He fuck. He meet Daisy. Oh, that's what I want to say. That's what I want to say. Sorry. That the thing the sex worker says is like, you're a regular Dick Tracy. Right. That's her line for how good he is at sex. Sure. Was he known to be a...

I don't really think of it. I think he had lady loves. Is that why Warren Beatty was drawn to the role? Maybe. Yeah. He is named Dick? He does. Maybe he was tracing his dick for her on some wax paper.

Fincher in the comments here keeps saying, like, this was the shot that my special effects supervisor almost quit over. Right, where he'd be like, he's got to be in the bathtub. And they'd be like, can we put a collar on him? It's easier if there's some line between the neck and the body. He's like, no, he doesn't wear a collar in the bathtub. And they get to the stuff. And he was like, I just kept a collar on him? It's easier if there's some line between the neck and the body. He's like, no, he doesn't wear a collar in the bathtub. And they get to the stuff and he was like,

I just kept saying to him, this is the job you signed up for. You have to do it, right? They would... Go ahead. He said the sexy in the brothel is the one he folded on where there was a...

Like, as written, a four-page scene where she gave him a cloth and he washed his genitals and they had a long conversation. Sure. And the special effects guy was like, can he just be under the covers right come on if they're both that's logical their bodies touching each other with covers on top it's gonna take 15 years right they would i i forgot to say you don't see him during that scene they would call the people

who play the the body double smurfs because they wore a blue sock over their head yeah it is insane to imagine all these scenes being shot with a little body double blue sock over his head while everyone else is just acting normal it's like the dana carvey finding out about 9-11 while in the master of disguise turtle suit he was in the turtle suit we know that right like it's that kind of thing of like like this serious movie and the surreality of actually being on set and he's just like men covered in blue. Yes. Look, I just have to tell you that he fuck, he meet Daisy, and then he become tugboat. Yes.

That's where we're going. He becomes a guy on a tugboat. Yes. Like, I watched this movie in two chunks. It's two hours and 45 minutes long. Very long. And it's slow. It's long, it's slow, it's methodical,

and it has digressions like Mr. Cake, like the long, oh, all the things that happened before Daisy got hit by a car, you know, things like that, where I'm sure there was a person being like, um, could we? Oh, Fincher keeps saying, talking about stuff they cut,

and saying we ultimately made the decision to cut the thing down to the bone. So I'm like, oh, so there was a five-hour version. Honestly, I would down to the bone. So I'm like, oh, so there was a five-hour version of this. Honestly, I would love to see that. Yeah. Because I don't, because the Daisy stuff, the lightning stuff, all that, like the Daisy, you know, the butterfly effect.

Like, I think it's all great. Yeah. And I think it doesn't feel like embellishment in a way that it would in a lesser director's hands. I agree. Like, had Gary Ross done that? Yeah. I'd say, Gary, get in and out in 90 minutes. Come on.

Yeah. But, uh, the Daisy, out in 90 minutes. Come on. Yeah. But, uh, da-da-da-daisy-day. Oh, tugboat, tugboat. Right. Yeah, I watched it. It's, you know, two hours. So I watched an hour 25, hour 25, pretty much. Okay.

I split it up. And I will say, Benjamin Button Part 1, I do prefer to Benjamin Button Part 2. Okay. Benjamin Button Part 1, I cut it off right when the war ends. Okay. After when Jared Harris dies. Mm-hmm. And you're kind of like,

this is a masterpiece. And then I think the latter half, which is a lot of Daisy, is very slow. And is sometimes a little watch commercial. Not that it's a bad thing, but you know, Benjamin Button's adventures are sometimes,

I do think he's about to turn around and offer me like a timeshare, you know? When he's like brushing his teeth in the Himalayas or whatever? He'll have a cup of Nespresso. 100%. And it can only air in Japan. Exactly.

The ending hits really hard for me, and I think it's good. But, you know, Tugboat is so much of this movie. Tugboat's good. I mean, Jared Harris. It's just a lot. One of my favorite guys. He has come up a number of times on the podcast. I'm always delighted by him.

But I do think his run after this is really good where it feels like people start giving him more meat. You know? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Because it's like, obviously, he's burdened and helped by being the son of a famous actor who kind of looks like his dad. Yes. They resemble each other. And so it's like he's been getting work for you.

Obviously, I shot Andy Warhol. I feel like his biggest role in a way. Yeah. Before Mad Men, right? I'm like looking at his very... But like, you know, Lost in Space. I mean, he's dubbed in that movie. He's in Smoke.

Yes. Peter Newman produced. It goes down my favorite movie when I was 12. Yeah. I can't believe what you saw in that movie. I can't even imagine. I remind you I was 12. No, no, I'm joking, Griffin. You were like, you know, come on.

I saw too much in that movie. Resident for you as a 12-year-old. But he's really good in that film. You know, lots of other stuff. Mr. Deeds, apparently, he's in that. Oh, he's really good in Mr. Deeds. He's one of Naraya's boss. I feel like he has a pretty big role in Sylvia, which is sort of a forgotten movie.

But I remember him being good. Doesn't he play the foreskin in Changeling? He does. Yeah, he does. But he's someone where. They took me off. At this point, still, I'm like, that's nice that someone hired Jared Harrison is letting him go off. Right.

And then it's like the second he gets Madman it's everyone like realizing like why have we been sleeping on this guy this guy should be getting everything and a big just like i think kind of turning point moment is you know in in the first sherlock holmes moriarty is in shadows right yes he is and they're like in the second one we're actually going to put moriarty in and guy richie's claim were a claim was i'm trying to get brad pitt to do it and our backup is daniel day lewis cool right they were just shooting big yeah and they couldn't get either guy to commit brad pitt would have been horrible would have been terrible and daniel day lewis never would have done it and they couldn't get either guy to commit they started filming the

second movie without the roll cast and they were like like, we're hoping we're going to get one of them on board. And then they just go like, fuck it, Jared Harris. And it works. And they just made the choice of being like, we don't need to cast a big star. Jared Harris will just kill this. He'll kill this. Give him a character poster. Which is often a good choice to make.

Yeah. He's good in it. Yeah. Yeah. He's always good. And I think it's fun in this to watch him on the more disheveled end of what he normally plays. Yes. You know, like, because, I mean, I first really knew him from Mad Men.

And, you know, he has a tragic ending in that. But he's more buttoned up and whatever. He's, you know, British and, you know, in a suit. And this is just, like, full tilt, just, like, messy, drunk all the time. And he does it just as well. He does it really well. And it's also like, you want some life in this movie.

The most Ben character in the movie, right? Yeah, I love this guy. The tattooed tugboat captain. He looks so damn good. He looks great. That scene where him and Benjamin are watching videotapes

on the porch. He's got Hosley colors. Playing Sega Genesis. I don't know how they got one in the 40s. He does. He has your complexion. He does. 100%. Absolutely. I don't know how they got one in the 40s. He does. He has your complexion. He does.

Oh, no, 100%. Absolutely. I would love to hang with Jared. You're always getting shot on boats, you know. I mean, truly, in a different life, I would have been

a tugboat captain. Absolutely. It's almost astounding that it isn't happening in this life. Also, just kind of seems like the best job where it's like,

what do you do? I'm on the seas. You know, I'm a captain. Okay, what is your job? Well, they tie a rope to a big boat and i just kind of go forward my wife be the ocean david a rope i i have a feeling it might be a huge fucking chain oh okay okay um benjamin does tugboating tugboats uh over to russia all that stuff they get shot up by a U-boat he dies

I didn't know that tugboats could go all that way are they doing more cargo at that point? I don't really know but I love the stuff with them sort of heading into this wintry you know it's always night time I feel like in those

is that Siberia? it's not it's sort of the other side it's near like Finland I also love in those, is that Siberia? It's not. It's sort of the other side. It's near like Finland. Oh, okay. I also love that when Button is very young, everyone who looks at him is like, well, that's a freak of nature, right? They look at him with like disgust and disdain. And then basically, starting from the brothel age on, they're like, this old man behaves a little strangely. they're like this old man behaves a little strangely right but he gets to basically be in the biological equivalent of like two kids stacked on top of each other in a trench coat

where he's like an undercover kid that adults speak to as if he is wiser than them and has lived more than they have yeah and he just kind of hangs back and is like as long as no one catches me and in his kind of laconic nature, they respect him more. There's a bit of a Chauncey Gardner where they're projecting onto his silence. Exactly. This man is run so deep, which is what everyone in the movie is doing.

He must know something we don't. He must be wise. He's aging like the rest of us. I'm 15 years old. Right. Exactly. I love all this. He's so excited to be living a life of high adventure. I'm a real dick, exactly. Like, I love all this. He's, like, so excited to be living a life of high adventure.

I'm a real dick, Tracy. Of course, this is, yes, when he has his first love affair with Elizabeth Abbott, played by Tilda Swinton, the wife of a spy. Yes, a performance I'm also a little astounded didn't get a nomination. She's so good. I think it's probably too quiet a performance. No, and Taraji obviously gets the nomination.

And she's so good in Burn After Reading this year as well, which they have to give her a nomination. Well, she won an Oscar the year after. Year before. Is Clayton year after or year before? Oh, year before. Year before, so she's just won an Oscar. Yeah, let it happen.

I love Tilda. She's so good in this. She's plain as paper, though. I know. I barely fucking remember that she's in it. Yeah, fincher like mocks that on the commentary uh it's like she's the most extraordinary looking person how could we do this she's very strict he didn't say who it was but he said there was an actress he really wanted and he kept on saying that's why i think we should hire and pit when i don't know i don't know and it was getting to the point where he was like if we're

not gonna what's your problem with this person he's like i don't know i don't dislike that person but i think we can do better and he's like okay then i give you five minutes sure call me back in five minutes if there's someone who's better than this person who is very good and we both agree it should be so obvious that if you can't think of the name in five minutes i'm we're going with melissa leo right yeah and then like pick called him three minutes later and said, tell us when he was like, you're right. No, she's better.

I wonder who was. I know. That's, that's intriguing. Uh, but, uh, it's sort of an insult if it comes out though,

which is why he clearly didn't even allude to who it was. Yes. Had they worked together before they hadn't? Well, that was, I think I don't burn after reading must've happened. Right. That's the thing.

When did those two... I think it comes out a couple months before. But did he produce Adaptation? She's in that. I can't remember when Plan B was rolling up its sleeves. I mean, not that Brad Pitt's an active producer on some of these. Although he has two Best Picture Oscars. He won one for 12 Years a S right did he win and he didn't

get one for moonlight but those are both plan b they are uh but right but i think no he was left off for moonlight but i think 12 years a slave but he's in it yeah great performance um but uh but like i guess because he's in i don I don't know. It doesn't matter. Anyway, that whole segment is sort of my favorite part of the movie. Yeah. Is them in the hotel having tea and then... Yeah. Well, fucking. Yeah.

Doing a little Dick Tracy-ing. It's also, like, this is where the age stuff gets interesting, where it's like, here's this woman who's maybe like given up on excitement in her life right and here she's having this kind of like final surprise surge whirlwind romance for a moment and for him this is his first love yeah you know like he's catching someone on the decline and this is the first time it's not his first time having sex and she thinks that they're simpatico in that yes yeah've both gone over some peak of life. And we've ended up in this wintry town in the middle of nowhere.

But he's like a college freshman. Yeah. It's undeniable. He has a crush on his professor, and that's her. Of course, she is a Diana Nyad type who wants to swim the channel. There are so many Diana Ny and i had times i'm sick of them time with dawson uh jellyfish always after them and uh so uh you know that's her lifelong dream she's incredibly good and it's that kind of performance where you're just like

just it's just all stripped away it's so simple what she's doing it's just presence you know and it's honest and it's a beautiful backstory like it's a it's if they're if they were going to pick one pertinent detail for her backstory she almost swam the english channel once 40 years ago or however long it's supposed to be 30 years ago yeah because it's this other running theme of the movies which is like missed opportunities yeah yeah yeah and like all of the regret about that and obviously that line about like that jared harris has about like you can hate how this happened. Right. Yeah. Almost everyone he's meeting along the way is in some way burdened by the thing they fucked up or the thing that fucked them over from getting to do what they wanted to do at their peak.

So you feel like, well, Benjamin Button is going to peak so late that he'll have the knowledge that all of us wish we had when we were in our body in that state and he does he doesn't oh you know no exactly he has regrets same as anybody else gain him anything no we can talk about that more in a second but obviously um then he goes back to nolans nolans uh learns that uh marcia died, meets Mr. Button for real for the first time. Reveals who he is. Uh, he reveals who he is, shows him a big button factory and leaves it to him. Yeah.

Button factory never comes up again. No. But I guess he's just kind of collecting button checks. It is so funny. Well, I don't know, the button industry probably was winding down after, right?

Well, but he kind of says like, look, World War I, a two, good time for buttons. Yeah. Yeah.

Good time for buttons. People need buttons. Yeah. Right. It's just so funny that like, you're I, II, good time for buttons. People need buttons. It's just so funny that, like, Benjamin Button, good character name. What's his deal? He's the heir to the button fortune. What do they do? Make buttons? Yeah, they do.

They fucking make buttons. That's what he wants from me. Okay, well, can the Paramount logo be a bunch of buttons? Yeah, I already did it for you. Here it is. First play. Warner Brothers 2. Yeah, fucking all of it.

Buttons everywhere. Like, that movie starts with the buttons You know damn Is this movie gonna be buttony? And then like after For a while I got no buttons It's about an old guy And then now we're in

They're like buttons Yeah more butt than buttons For the first 20 minutes There's some butt You got a little baby tushy Benjamin goes to see New York Daisy in New York But you know she's yeah

she's a young woman she's being bohemian she's being bohemian she's standing there in the corner he looks like fucking orson bean you know come on you know i was thinking about it like someone watched equalizer 2 today did you know orson bean died of a in a car accident yes you're like oh orson bean died how old is he 91 you're like oh that's a grand old age. Oh, he died in 2020. He did die of COVID. No, he died February 2020. Oh, okay. Well, but of old age, right? No, a car hit him.

That guy was indestructible. It's like someone mowed him down. What is it? Desmond Lewin or whatever? Desmond Lewin. Terrible. I was thinking about in the great scene when he goes to see her in New York

and she's like, when I would do plays in college and like a high school friend would come see it. And then after the play, I want to go to the cast party or hang out with my theater friends. And here's this person from my old other life. Yes. And it was, who I love, but, like, it was so hard to reconcile those things. And I think this movie, that's a pretty complicated dynamic for a big blockbuster prestige Oscarcar movie to like even bother with but this is a

movie that i think you know fincher is only interested in those dynamics he goes for all the weird hard to pin down little like moments and energy shifts and all that thing rather than the huge things right well because the thing is about to usually lead a movie like this to oscar glory he's not like i think he had obviously and you guys are going to talk talking about this on the whole season but like obviously reputation cool dark all that stuff but he's always a humanist yes like he is interested in human behavior these people are not just sort of like objects that he wants to move around to get pretty pictures you know or interesting and also by the way this movie he takes this on pretty shortly after his own

father dies as well right he said the benjamin button behavior is largely modeled after his father that his father was this kind of passive listener wallflower guy and that his father had all this ambition to make films which he tried to realize within his father's own life and he didn't you know like this movie is him working through his shit as much as Eric Roth was in writing the script. Mank. Yeah. Mank.

Mank. Yeah, and so there's something gentle about it. Mank, Mank, Mank. Sank. Sank, Sank, Sank. Then, Kate Blanchett gets Orson Bean'd. I'm sorry. It's an incredibly, incredibly offensive joke.

I'm really sorry. But she does get hit by a car. That sequence is, you know, it's a little like Paul Thomas, a little Magnolia. Yeah, it's a little Magnolia. Where you're kind of like, okay. But it's effective, I think.

You know, the, oh, if only, you know. But in the same way that a lot of this movie's gumpisms are actually anti-gumpisms this is sort of the anti-magnolia which is like ricky jay is saying like surely these things mean something the connectedness is is crucial right even if we can't and benjamin is just like man i don't know shit happens roll the clock backwards yeah everything is causally related in some way and so whatever what can you do but that doesn't make you important no no it doesn't mean there was any vendetta being settled no but

and it's like it means that daisy will not be quote-unquote important in terms of like she will not enjoy celebrity sure right you know she will have to go back and marry a you know a button freak but even beyond that just her her life will remain fundamentally forever unfulfilled there is a part of her that never got to know of course that doesn't mean she has a bad life in any way i mean you know maybe benji could have stuck around it's sarah silverman in take this waltz life has a gap you don't go crazy trying to fill it you know good movie and that's a pretty big gap for for daisy but like yes remember when sar Sarah Polly won an Oscar that year? It was so great. Yeah.

I was so happy. Me too. I was so happy. Yeah. I almost fucking had to play the fax machine for the fifth time while Quiet on the Western Front was going to get on stage again. It was going to be so bad. When they would play that fucking fax machine score. It was like,

It's what it sounds like. I didn't know what you meant by play the fax machine. Because that fucking movie has that score that sounds like a dial-up modem. Or like a dot maker's printer. Yeah, exactly. And they had to, you know, oh, it won again. Play the fucking fax machine. So annoying.

And then it was like, wait, we're talking. And then you had Francis McDormand's big head. Sorry. It's also, that was the only major award that A24 didn't win. Yeah, whale or everything. A24 won picture, director, original screenplay, all four acting categories. All four acting categories. That's wild.

Going back to Daisy, when you zoom out back to the hospital room and you find out the daughter never knew about her dancing career that yeah i've never seen this yeah destroyed me because i have great parents but who are are people that are very deeply private and they're they're now getting you know later into their lives and they just will sometimes just... They'll let something slip. They'll just throw a little fact out, and you're like, what the fuck?

How had you never shared this with me before? This shapes my view of you in such a... Like, I see you in a completely different way now. Overshare with your children is what we're saying. But I think that in this movie's psychology, and maybe it's more grandiose for daisy than it is for your parents ben is that like it hurts to talk about a little bit it's sad to talk no but i also there it gave me perspective too because i do understand this is like one of the like most tragic parts of her life on my read doesn't want to talk about it yes she can't think about it no it's too. It's too hurtful. No, and I'll, like,

I feel like, what I was talking about, how memory becomes myth and then you tell the stories to other people, it becomes abstracted even more, right? Yeah.

When people ask you in small talk, like, so what are your parents like? What do they do? You know? You give, like,

this bullet point version of your parents' life consolidated into, like, six sentences. Sure. And you've more greatly condensed what they've condensed in

telling to you leaving out these large swaths and then when you find out one of these things which has happened with my parents as well over the last couple years my grandmother who's much much older and i've been trying to pull stuff out of while she's still here you like hear these anecdotes and you go like my entire notion of you is completely disrupted yeah i don't know how to slot that in between these two points in the six sentences I used to have about you. Like the story that I have created for you is now you've distorted that.

You created a story in your life and then I created it even further and I don't know how to fit it in here. It's missing episodes, a season of a show that I never got to see and whatever. And there's also that moment julia roman plays so well where it's because they only cut back to them like five times maybe um yeah but she's reading the book and she looks up and she says like you must have met dad pretty shortly

after and she's doing the math yeah and she's doing the math of just like at this point there's a 50 50 shot that this button dude is my biological father yeah i know when i was born i know when dad would have and where's the button money right all of this it's getting it's getting like uncomfortably close and it's not a thing she can yell at her mother about her mother can barely breathe she chastises her mother though she's like i'm finding out this way this is you know she does have that moment there's only a degree to which. Yeah, she can't relitigate. She can't open it all up.

Speaking of Armand, I also love, it's one line that they never revisit again, where she's saying, well, you know, I haven't made much of my life. Like, Julia Armand's saying that. And it's like, see, everyone feels like, it's just, it's not just. Her character's an astronaut.

Right, yeah. She lived in Wyoming with Braditt for a while yeah um yeah no no no that's that's very true yes that she she's afflicted with benjamin button disease which we all are which is you know that's the thing i have done more we actually all have it look fincher someone who's had a a great career right and was was something of like a a wonder kind and everything right but could he have called himself to finch man earlier could he have had all his movies called it's embarrassing that it took the dough boys to come up with the name he should have been assigning himself from the very beginning no but also like certainly a director who had a serious case of the attaches over years you know in projects that you would fall apart that he drops out of that

he gets fired off of all these things you know you're just like he must be overridden with a sense of like if I had made this movie at this point does my career go

this way instead of that way he and del toro should you go get drinks and talk about exactly that and just try to work through some some things is our

new phrase that JJ coined it's good it's good well it's good and it describes a very particular kind of director. You have to be a pretty big director because it means lots of people want you to make their move. And those two guys

even are like, but let's not invite Romantic. But he's also... He's got chronic attaches. He's addicted. He never gets the mace. He's too much of a bummer. He just got hit by a car in Paris. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Just like, what if it said like directed... You got Orson Fee. How about this? How about this? Directed by David Fincher.

Okay. Pay to Black. Next credit comes up. From Da Desk of Da Finch Man. That'd be his writing. That should be his version of Spike Lee Joint. There you go.

But it's said in... I know they have a voice for it, but I think it should be his version of Spike Lee joint. There you go. But it's said in, I know they have a voice for it, but I think it should be said in your Verhoeven voice. Yeah. From the desk of Da Vinci Man. How about sprung from the twisted bean of Da Vinci Man? There you go. Part two of this film yeah is the the settling part you know benjamin returns to new orleans so does daisy they reunite queenie dies they fall in love they have a kid she opens a ballet studio

well you're breezing through a lot of stuff i'm not this is the movie starts to breeze what i know it does what i want to say is when he comes to visit her in the hospital i think that's the first time she says you're perfect right which basically says variations of that three times like every time she sees him again he looks even better and she's more out of mostly envy yes not it there is attraction there exactly but it's mostly the kind of thing of like me you know stand to be like hey i was a fucking old man for four years. I had a pretty bad run of things. Let me enjoy this. I was seven, but I looked a lot older.

What if he still had the voice? I wish. But her career is in some part about vanity. It's about physical ability as well. She can't be a star anymore. And every time she's like, my sister has this obsession.'s one and one and a half years older than me that i don't have any wrinkles and she does i don't really think she

has wrinkles but she always like will be i'll be like saying something pertinent about my life and she'll just kind of be like you don't have any wrinkles well i like you know it's that kind of thing i always i always i don't i disagree with her but i always feel terrible how i about how i look and if you show me a picture of me from three years earlier I'm like Jesus fucking had it this is the most common syndrome it's always everyone has this

it's so true where I'm looking at a young picture of myself and I'm like damn I look great and also I'm like I know I didn't like this I was miserable I know I thought this looked bad I know I thought I didn't have it it's the myth of the button thing duh juice I didn't have it. And it's the myth of the button thing of you're like.

Duh juice. Right. I didn't have duh juice. Does button, like, is he in the right mindset at the moment he's in his peak condition where he would know how to use it for whatever that means, right? Where he would appreciate it. And you're like, no, he doesn't. And she looks at him with spite every time. You know, there's this brief moment in the middle where they sort of actually, like, are able to be with each other.

And it's so funny to think about. They've known each other at that point for 15, 20 years? Yeah, longer. 30 years. And you're like, this is the first time they're actually really spending extended time together. They don't actually know each other that well. It's like a day here, a day there, spread out by years.

I kind of love when they do finally sleep together because I feel like the way it goes down, it's very much like, do you want to sleep together? Yeah, let's do it. This has been building up for a really long time. It's not like, let's lie to Cam. She's like, make love to me. He's like, mm-hmm.

He's like, yeah, ripping his shirt off as he's answering. And there's a timeline on it. They land on her. She doesn't mind. But there's like, yes, the timeline is more loud for them because it's like,

we've been in opposite directions. This one moment, we're right here at the center. And then she's going to be possibly too vain to want to sleep with, like, beautiful 22-year-old-esque Benjamin. You know, like...

Johnny Suede Benjamin, we call him. Right, there you go. Cool world, perhaps? Cool world Benjamin. Yeah. I think another part of that, too, is that, like,

you said earlier in this episode, like, we all know dying is inevitable. We're going towards that. We know what happens. It's scary. For you guys, yeah. Yeah, of course. You have no ring to use.

No, no, no, I'm fine. But, like, you know, if you're lucky enough to have the privilege to grow old, you look forward to all these things that are kind of scary and depressing. And that's if you get to live a long life, right? Benjamin Button is this one guy where everyone's like like i actually don't know what happens the last 20 years of his life i think everyone around him's wondering including himself do i turn to a giant baby do i stay this way forever do i like turn into dust like what happens so like she's overcome with the like my life is on the decline i'm past my physical peak i'll never get to fulfill my greatest passion all this sort of stuff and he this is what he's been looking forward to

his entire life is basically him and daisy being equals yeah being able to be together which only satisfies him so briefly before he starts to go yeah but what else can i do in my life and also what can't i do because like obviously the idea is i would settle down with a child right and like but i he's in a way to also too prideful to let that happen or to worry you know like i think about my dad like it's a different sort of story but like choosing to have children you know let's say 10 years later than most people do like knowing like okay when my son's 40, I'll be 89, like, you know. But, like, I think this movie,

you're like, he should have stayed at least for some time. Absolutely. No, and Fincher has said... It's the most selfish decision. Yes. It doesn't make any sense. Because they would have figured it out.

But, you know... 100%. He also doesn't turn into, like, a teenager who doesn't know anything for years. Yeah. Fincher has said that this was, unsurprisingly,

his single biggest fight with Paramount. And it was like a point he refused to move on, which is he doesn't say anything. He just like leaves in the middle of the night. It really upset both of us when we were watching it. Because now it feels so crazy. And he's just like, I think that's the character we built. Like this guy is so bottled in his emotions you know and he

is just operating out of fear and it's just like that's kind of and it is a point of cruelty that is hard for the audience to get past especially when it's kind of inexplicable where he can't even verbalize it to himself right it just it does make it it hits flatter for me when he's like brushing his teeth on the mountain or whatever and i'm like oh great you had all your experiences buddy yeah i mean i think the other thing about like brad pitt getting nominated which is interesting i get why he did but like he's good in it but also like we you finished this movie being like wow we've benjamin has expressed himself so much and it's like no only a voiceover yes yeah you're getting a lot of

narration it's all in his and i mean i love there's that moment where he's torn a bunch of pages out of the book yeah and she's like i don't know what this is and it's like we'll never fucking know because we're only reading his version of his tale lullabalooza uh yeah too curious too curious like this tale could be curious well he did he spent some time in new mexico working on some kind of science project with some people yeah uh-huh yeah but also like i you know comparing it to meet joe black like it's kind of a similar performance like yeah like in the present tense of of the movie like kind of blank curious but cold like yeah you know orson joe black it's orson beaned yeah well that's not joe black okay yeah that's right other right that's the body that scene is absolutely

hysterical still it is i watched it last night it was like maybe one it can never be deleted no but it is maybe the one scene where if martin breast was like i actually i needed to digitally alter it i need to do a special edition i don't know what we were thinking yeah i would be like i fully understand my friend Let's also admit that Joe Black, by his very profession, is basically an Orson Bean-er. He can choose to Orson Bean you if he

says so. He exists to Orson Bean. He Orson Beans us out of this plane and onto the next one. So we're just now using Orson Bean to mean leaving this mortal coil. RIP to Breitbart contributor Orsonson bean did you know he became a bright contributor late in life oh yeah he's so good in equalizer too he's so good at fucking being john malkovich yeah he was he was on carson 200 times did you know that no he was like one of

those guys like it was just like now orson bean i just remember And he got hit by a car on Carson? It's horrible. What are we doing? The criterion commentary for being John Malkovich. I think it might be Jones and Gondry together. Gondry? You mean Kaufman. No, I think it might be Gondry.

It's Jones and another filmmaker. Okay, fine. Sure. Gondry's just like, this part's crazy. No, at one point they start talking about Orson Bean. And they're like, he was such a great actor it's really like you're talking like he's dead yeah and then someone googles him in the middle of it and they were like he's still alive and spike jones is like what he is so fucking funny and being john malkovich that like where he's just being normal and introducing the job and then he talks about like how this woman's like breasts are divine

ambrosia and she's so funny yes it's like my favorite bit he also does all the exposition in that movie yes of how it works no he's great yeah he's great i just like the spike jones was sort of talking with the knowledge of like and i went to visit him in his dying days and then he's basically just like i assumed we shot this movie 20 years ago that guy's still no he's apparently he's apparently lining up a Denzel sequel. As long as he never tries to cross the road, he'll live forever. I apologize to the friends and family of Orson Bean.

So, yes, he abandons his family. He Johnny Suede's himself. He Cool World's himself. He Thelma and Louisa's all the way right back to the ballet studio. California's mostly in shadow. The de-aging does work, but it's all done very carefully where it's like we do not see too much of him. No. To keep it from feeling waxy.

Yeah. Interesting thing Fincher said is because the de-aging on Cate Blanchett is so good. Yeah. And for this being pretty early in that technology when it often looks so bad, I was like, why is this better? She's got a smooth face. Smooth face. She and I have that in common. Yep.

And some of the younger scenes that he actually had to age her up. But no, the other thing he said is her face is so sculpted that all we really did was fill in her cheekbones. Right, yeah. That we weren't removing wrinkles.

All we did was we gave her baby fat. We added cheeks and that was it. Yeah, that's interesting. Because, yeah, she obviously has become more pinched, as all people do. And then, yeah, Benny turns into... They do have sex once when he's like Thelma and Louise. Yeah, and she seems really insecure during it.

It's a really good scene. Like, that shot of her getting dressed is such a clever thing for Fincher to include. Like that, like vulnerability she has. And obviously he's, you know, quote unquote perfect or whatever. Yeah. And like how she feels perceived by him. Yeah.

No, it's kind of, there's a little bit of an interesting like baton pass. Yeah. At this point, he's not a character really no and you're really staying with blanchett more in in the present of the journals even though yeah yeah um no it really becomes her movie for the last 20 minutes yes maybe yeah it's you know then he's a teenager and he's right he's basically a demented old man in the body of a child for the rest of the movie it's upsetting it's. It's really upsetting. Yeah. Because you do...

I mean, it's such a long movie, and you do get caught up. You are kind of like, okay. You get caught up in the same kind of delusion that the people who know him are, which is like, he's eternal. Something magical is going to happen. And yet it's like, no, no, no, we found him sleeping under a fucking bridge or whatever it is,

because he doesn't have anyone. He's left his life, you know. Yeah. Which is also like how a lot of old people end up, you know. Sure. Yes, if they don't have someone to, you know, help them. Look, I mean, I think we've all made a – I'm glad we are all on the same page of vouching for this movie's right to respect, right? Yeah. I still think think inarguably

it's in the bottom half of his filmography i have it yeah but he has a he has an exceptional filmography he does i think this movie gets a bad rap but i also like could never argue it's one of his five best films no i have a little below but it's interesting i think it's it's more worthy than it has a reputation for being yes and i think it's of a piece with his filmography rather than people seeing it as like, that's the one weird time he tried to make someone else's kind of movie. It's as sentimental as he's going to get. It's as sentimental as he's going to get, but I think Griffin is right that it's got way more Fincher in him than you might think or that he gets credit for. Once again, as sentimental as he can possibly get. In the movie, the guy abandons his daughter

without even leaving a note. Yeah, but I don't like that part. Yeah, that's my point, though. That's in line with Fincher's worldview. I guess it is. And he gets to do a pretty, I think, effective and creepy World War II scene.

Yeah, it's a good scene. No, that scene's really good. A little action for people who've been dragged to the theater. Right, yeah. It turns out that was U-571 and it's McConaughey on the other end. Jack Noseworthy is somewhere in there. You finish the book. action for people who've you know been dragged to right yeah it turns out that was u571 and mcconaughey on the other end right then jack noseworthy is somewhere in there you finish the

book at the moment as your mother breaks her last breaths as they evacuate the hospital and as you see the clock get drowned it's just like all of this just fucking goes away yeah that's it that's it and then the clock metaphor. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't perfectly line up with Benjamin's situation, but it, yeah, it's evocative. Yeah. And then you get why it's during Katrina. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Good movie. I think it's a good movie. I do too. If you don't like it, I don't care. It got 13 Oscar nominations. Two, two. Here comes the Orsonmobile. It wins visual it, I don't care. It got 13 Oscar nominations. Two, two. Here comes the Orsonmobile.

It wins visual effects, I assume. It wins art direction? No. Yes, art direction. Yes. And the third one would have been costumes? Makeup. Makeup.

Oh, of course. Lost costumes. I'm not sure to who. Let's find out. 2008. There's an obvious. Lost costumes, of course, to the Duchess. Yeah.

Just a couple of final thoughts here. Did I mention I was struck by lightning seven times? Did that come up on this? Who's that guy? You should have meted it out. Maybe one reveal every 10 minutes of the podcast. If you're interested in the commentary, director notorious for doing multiple takes uh in a movie

like this that's so technically precise with needing to line up head replacement whatever i think that was even more of an extreme thing yeah and he would do so many takes of this guy and they'd be like i think we have it don't you want to move on he's like i just really like washing him act oh that's he was like i do the takes because i just i thought this guy was so good on camera he is roy. Roy Sullivan is the actor. A lot of the, especially the... Oh, no, I'm sorry. Roy Sullivan is the real person that he's based on who was struck by lightning seven times.

Oh, wow. The character is called Mr. Dawes in the movie. He's very recognizable to me. I just want to find who plays Mr. Dawes. This is where fucking AI should be doing this. AI should be doing this for you? I'm joking. No, not fucking, not Dick Van Dyke.

Wait a second. What? Because that's the character in Mary Poppins as well, Mr. Dawes. Ted Manson. Okay. Didn't you recognize that guy? He's the grandfather in Talladega Nights. That's what I know him from.

Great. He's so funny in that He's also of course I'm gonna come at you like a spider monkey Sad Joe in Elizabethtown Oh god, I'm out Well technically every character in that movie has sad before their name He feels like one of those guys Who just was biding his time

Until he turned 75 And suddenly Hollywood was like we need an old guy and it's you A classic Patrick Crenshaw. Right. Yeah. That's who he is though. He's fucking talented and nice. He's Chip.

He's Chip. Did you know that June Squibb and Mary Ellen Burke are both in Meek Joe Black? Is it Mary Beth Burke who plays the mom in

whatever? I'm rambling. But like, but June Squibb is in Meek Joe Black and has many lines. That's wild. Yeah. No, she was around. Yeah. Yeah. I'm notambling. But like June Squibb is in Mutual Black and has many lines. That's wild. Yeah, she was around. Yeah. Not sure who you mean, though. It's not Mary

Burke. We can think about it. Yes, this film was nominated for various Oscars. She plays the guy's mom in Sideways. What? Oh, so, right. No, you're right. June Squibb is not the mom in Sideways. No, no, no. She's the wife and a wife and a mouth Schmidt who did very well in their old age. She's in Mary Louise Burke.

Mary Louise Burke. There we go. Okay, quick. I just have a couple more. Please. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. So we were talking

about the logic, right? Of how this, like, could work. Sure. Wouldn't he, could he come out as a ghost initially?

Then, go on. Turn into a slash. That's a ghost initially then go on turn into some sort of funky phantom you should be born as a funky fan that's what i'm saying and then like it's like dr manhattan like you see a skeleton walking around yes that's what i'm saying that's what i'm saying he could have been a little bone oh he should recompose you just want a bone man this is just a roundabout way wait a second you're getting a bone man on screen and then he starts getting hair and his nails and flesh yeah no no it's good it's a good pitch it's a good pitch because then he could also come out as a full grown thing if he was a ghost i like i know what you mean but when you keep on phrasing it has come out i keep thinking you're saying, like, announce his identity as.

Mom, Dad, I'm a little bone man. A little bone man. This film. Do you have further notes, Ben? Yeah, just last thing is hey, listeners, look both ways when you're crossing the street. Don't twirl. Don't get beamed.

Don't get beamed. Don't get blacked. Well, don't say that don't get beamed don't get beamed don't get blacked well don't say that well sorry you can cut it out keep it in black um the weird thing about this movie is yes it didn't win best picture even though it's a big movie right that's not surprising who did it like lose to the slumdog buzzsaw that's the weirdest thing about slumdog is you're like the most unexpected where it's like well what were you supposed to do slumdog had it one and this i think this would have won had slumdog not yeah possibly because it's a very

weak year obviously it's the year that they don't night nominate the dark knight and wally right like that's the scene is missing out on... And Gran Torino to a lesser extent. Right. Yeah. Is missing out on these popular films. And yes, like I do think of Button, Frost Nixon, The Reader, and Milk. Right.

Button probably is the front runner. I think Milk is maybe the better liked movie and actually wins two big Oscars. But somehow never had that heat behind it even though I think it's...

No, because it's a biopic, I guess. And it was gay. Yeah. What? It's so good. Did you know that... Did you not pick that up?

Is he gay? Milk? I thought he was made of milk. Milk man. No, Josh Brolin's gay. Yes. No. No, because he's gay.

There's definitely one actor in screenplay. Yeah. Milk. Yeah. A little bit of controversy around screenplay, Wynn, but we can talk about that off air. Uh-huh. He's still working today. Oh, yeah.

Oh. Okay. I'm seeing here he wrote a movie this year. He wrote Rustin, right? Rustin Lance Black? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just saying, imagine if as a director you went from August Wilson to Dustin Lance Black as your screenwriter. How that would go.

But it is, yeah, it's just funny. It's like, yeah, well, what were you supposed to do though? The Slumdog Millionaire train. There's no fighting. Chucked all the way through. Right. Like Fincher sitting there losing, just being. And that, that was apparent at what point in this, I know you guys probably talked about

this during. In like the Oscar race. I don't even know. I think. Like how far did they see it coming? My, my, my perception of memory is that like from the moment Slumdog plays a tiff and it is the front runner right button screens late doesn't come out until christmas and i think from the time buttons like the one waiting to be the last movie the critics see the last hope to knock it off they

were like well if this thing's undeniable it pushes slumdog off the mantle and i think the reaction was very well done yes but a lot of critics were like, eh, this is a sap fest. You know, it got dismissed by a lot of critics. And, you know, then it gets put into the, yeah, it'll win

some technical Oscars. What I find so fascinating is it's a sap fest and also it didn't make me cry enough. Like, I feel like it was getting hit from both sides. Yeah, sure.

Yeah, that's true. Right. Yeah, but Fincher the Iceman is still behind the camera. I'm going to feel and he won't give me the release yeah sure yeah because it's a little too in its head you know in an interesting way but it's a big hit it is a big hit i it made 127 domestic 329 worldwide it's a good hit it's a good hit but it's not a you know much bigger overseas bigger overseas but like you know what i mean like it's not good hit it's a good hit but it's not a you know much bigger overseas bigger overseas but

like you know what i mean like it's not quite the phenomenon you maybe want it to know it's not making a slumdog it's like micho black like yeah it like made i probably it was an expensive even maybe but like yeah i mean this did much better than micho black domestically yeah um but yeah so it's the thing is like Forrest Gump is that weird on paper. This does not seem commercial and yet it was a fucking triple crown winner. Right. And they would just keep on going, like, every once in a while

you have to pick an odd piece of material, stack it full of top-tier talent, and maybe this thing just hits the zeitgeist just right. There better be a southern accent. Yes. But it made less domestically than the film it opened against on Christmas 2008. You were starting to talk about this right before we started recording. About now, basically Christmas, you get a classic standard blockbuster, maybe one kids movie counter-programming.

And one Oscar-y movie probably. It used to be like six big studio films. Six fucking things that have nothing to do with each other. Just fed to the bloodbath. And often five of them will succeed. Yeah. The biggest weekend. It's a fertile time.

Yes. Benjamin Button's opening number three out of four new openings on the top five. The one that I believe won the bloodbath, surprisingly, embarrassingly for Brad. Was Jennifer Aniston's Marley? Correct. Marley had the killer instinct. Marley? Also about death. Also about death. Also about death. Marley and Me makes 36 domestic and... It's an ordinary dog.

Have you made this dog? Makes 36 opening week and 143 domestic. It doesn't do as well worldwide. Worldwide, people didn't care about Marley. But America loved Marley. America liked Marley. Loved Marley.

Loved Marley. We love Marley. I have tremendous dog. So Marley and me is number one. I'm seven, but I look a lot older. He's seven and dog years. He could be buttoned. He could have buttoned.

He could have buttoned. Owen? Yeah. Hey, you want a button? Number two at the box office is not The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. No. It is a family comedy with a big star. Is it an opener or is it a...

Opening this week to 27 mil on its way to a domestic take of 110. I feel like this is the one that people thought was going to be number one. And Marley and Me was kind of the surprise. I mean, this movie stars a big comedy star. In 2008. But I would say it's regarded as one of his lesser. It's not Gulliver's Travels, is it? No.

But am I kind of in the right ballpark? Sort of. It's not a Farrell. No. It's not a Stiller. No. It's a big comedy star. It's not a Carey?

No. Or is it? No Stiller. No. It's a big comedy star. It's not a Carrie? No. Or is it? No. Fuck. Okay. Who are the other comedy A-listers of this moment? And Owen Wilson's already there. Is it not a Vince Vaughn?

No. Who's bigger than him? Big comedy star of the 2000s. Sandler. Adam Sandler. Bedtime stories. Bedtime stories. Which is not good.

His one dalliance with Disney, I feel. And this is only Disney. Benjamin Button, also sort of a bedtime story. Yeah. That's true. It is. Parallels everywhere. Never seen Bedtime Stories. Not good. Is that with Keri Russell or is that Click? That's Keri Russell. Oh, it is. Click is who? Theresa Palmer. Guy

Pierce is the villain. Click is Beckinsale. Beckinsale. Yeah. I think I've now seen all Guy Pearce is the villain. Click is back in sales. Back in sale. Back in sale. Yeah. I think I've now seen all the Sandler vehicles. I think I finally filled in all my final gaps. But this one I saw in theaters. And didn't like.

No, not good. Number three, Benjamin, but number four is another new opener. I think a film that one time had Oscar hopes, but didn't really pan out. Kind of a flop By the standards of this star And a director Who's had some stories in the news Recently? You know

The last few years It's not a Gibson No Worse Is it Valkyrie? It's like James Woodson Bryan Singer's Valkyrie? It's like James Woodson Bryan Singer's Valkyrie Benjamin Button also killed some Nazis

He did Whereas Tom Cruise tried his fucking best But blew it Weirdly the movie that then sets up Tom Cruise's redemption arc By finally teaming him up with McQuarrie And then They build a relationship

That is true rebuilt him um that is one of those movies where i was so hyped at the time because i was sort of like superman returns underrated like tom cruise doing a prestige movie love that and it is a weirdly flat movie it is there's the one thing in that movie i think is really impressive that i that i think about a lot that they wanted to kill hitler which I think is really impressive that I think about a lot. That they wanted to kill Hitler? Which I think is good. Yeah. I think that actually stands up well.

What's impressive? I mean, I was also just pumped because it's like Bill Nye, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson. You know, they've got all these guys. But they're doing BYOA. Yeah. Bring your own accent. They're also doing like NAR. No acting required.

No acting required. Yes. I just sit here in this uniform and read the lines. It'll be fine, right? Yes. I was listening to the Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning spoiler special podcast that Empire put out, which are really good.

A quick 18 hours across six episodes. Yeah, that's why I haven't gotten to it yet. But he was saying he gave Cruise full credit for this, that in his script, it was like, they make the assassination attempt the bomb goes off Hitler survives it you immediately cut to Hitler and is like they tried to assassinate me and Cruz said don't cut back to Hitler right and he's like what are you talking about he's like live in it where they think they've succeeded right and stay in

the tension of that for 30 or 40 minutes and of course like that won't work people know Hitler didn't die and Cruz was like the audience won't care and I remember sitting there in the tension of that for 30 or 40 minutes. And of course, like, that won't work. People know Hitler didn't die. And Cruise was like, the audience won't care. And I remember sitting there in the theater in the 30 minutes where they're proceeding as if they've succeeded and feeling genuine tension, even though I knew where it was going and how it ended. And it is this kind of like power of movies thing where there's this chunk of the movie where you're just like, yeah. Not a good movie. Number five. That opened on Christmas?

I don't know what anyone was thinking. What on earth? It's an insane decision. That was only 15 years ago and that's like talking about a different planet. It's just literally like people in theaters like Tom Cruise in an American accent in a Nazi uniform saying like

Hitler has seen his last sunrise and people are like, we could see that at Christmas. Hey, babe, do you want to see bedtime stories or the movie where Tom Cruise plays a Nazi? Not only that,

both are opening on Christmas with an eye patch. Yeah. With an eye patch. Not only that, but that's Cruise being like, I need to convince audiences that I'm normal. People think I'm crazy. No,

let's actually, you know what? Let's, let's, let's compromise. We'll see the movie where Brad Pitt plays Sling Blade as a wizened old baby. That's the truth. The family had to agree on Button as the most normal.

It's like, I don't want to watch a dog die. That's what my family would have done. Yeah, yeah. Let's go to, and I saw this film with my girlfriend at the time and her parents. And it was truly a, like, gotta do something on christmas you know uh at the amc lincoln square i remember very clearly um number uh five at the box office is uh a jim carrey comedy falling to number five from number one the week before it is yes man yes man jim carrey's basically last swing at just like doing a jim carrey. Mr. Proper's Penguins, but then...

That doesn't count. Yeah, then yes, you're right. Right? Because that's a kid's movie. Yeah. This is just him being like, it's a high concept movie with me. Let's just do Liar Liar, but different. This was, you know,

it's been litigated many times what caused the death of the studio comedy over the course of like 15 years. That's a thing I bring my hands about. Yes, we litigated it on this podcast. But this, Yes Man, was an interesting case study where they were like, these movies are getting too expensive,

they don't do as well overseas, the stars cost too much money, and you price yourself out of good scripts. And Carrie was like, I'll take no upfront salary, only back end. That's a way to keep the budget down. I'm betting on myself. And people pointed at it as like, this is a model going forward, and basically no one tried that

ever again. Yeah, well, you know. And that's for a mediocre movie. And it still made money. It made money. Yeah, he made more than the 20 he would have made up front had he stuck to his quote. Right. Number six of the box office is seven pounds. Do not touch the jellyfish.

Normal. Like Diana Nyad? This is the thing. People are like, where did... Where did Marvel come from? I'm like, Hollywood was a little bit out of ideas. Yeah, but also, look at... They were rummaging into the junk drawer, be like,

will this work? Is this the movie? Jellyfish? What is fascinating though is you look at this 10 and a lot of people are a little bit off their game But it's like stars It's like Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett Will Smith, Tom Cruise, Adam Sandler

Jim Carrey All A-listers, Jellyfish Desperow And his tail Number 7 at the box office Number 8, Keanu Reeves And the day of the earth should still A big star And his tail? The tail. Number seven at the box office. Number eight, Keanu Reeves. And The Day the Earth Shows Still.

A big star? Big star. Not a big hit. That's his last hit before he goes into another fallacy. Can you imagine a multiplex now where all of those people are in movies that you could go see? No. At once. I mean, that's what I mean. And not one of those films is a sequel.

No. There's a remake. There are book adaptations. No. I mean, that's why. And not one of those films is a sequel. No. There's a remake. There are book adaptations. No, I mean, Seven Pounds. Well, Benjamin Bunn's a sequel to Clifford. But other than that, yeah. Yes, no, it is wild to think about. And you know what?

We're going to keep it going because number nine is not a sequel. It's The Spirit, which is sort of, which is a huge flop. Oh, a humongous flop. Disaster. Opening this weekend. Again, Christmas. Yeah. Christmas for this?

That's also a moment where people are like, maybe superhero movies are finally dead. Yeah, right. That's a good point. But, you know, obviously... We did it. The Spirit is sort of

a sequel to Sin City. Yes. Like, it's being presented that way, but, you know. And then 10 is Doubt. Yeah. Which is, I don't think, a sequel.

David, look it up. I'm afraid we're checking his phone. No, I'm saying we have to send a family photo to daycare okay Just being right You have to send one? They want one

Is a family there? They're doing some kind of family photo thing I don't know Your daughter's photo at school is very funny She's really into for whatever reason Closing one eye when she smiles She's doing a goofball thing So it looks like she's like a Shirley Temple

You should never have shown her valentine Can I Can I say it, David? Daddy, I want one eye. She's giving a little stinker. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, she can be a little stinker sometimes. It's very cute when she's a little stinker. The other fascinating thing, Richard,

you saying this feels like a million years ago. This is a thing I feel like people are talking about a lot now. I had to go to number 17 to find a sequel, and it's Quantum of Solace. Wow. The first true sequel is... Which had been out for like six weeks.

And also, James Bond doesn't really count. No. The first true sequel is Madagascar Escape to Africa. Which had also been out for like six weeks. Yeah.

Eight, in fact. Jeez. Undershot it. No, not only is it like, can you imagine going to a multiplex and all those stars having new movies out and wide release but also that list is still largely our biggest stars like some people have waxed and waned a little bit yeah or they've shifted or whatever but a lot of our favorite stars you're right yeah it's this thing that people talk about where it's like there

was whatever uh survey that came out of america's top movie star not the q score but there was one of those sort of showcom things or whatever and it was like the top 20 living movie stars and the only guy who cracked it who was under 40 was chris hemsworth was the only guy who was not already a movie star by 1999 right i hear you but i think we have great new stars i love them it just feels like we're not letting them elevate. Because Hitman is going to Netflix. That's the fucking problem. Look. We're not giving them.

I understand why it is. We'll say things off mic about that. But Glenn Powell's not young. He's no spring chicken. He's 34. But he's aging in reverse. He's not aging in reverse. He's just not aging.

How do I know how old Glenn Powell is? You don't think I look that up every two days? Every minute of every day. Come on. Give me some credit. Yeah, no, I mean, you know, we have our young stars. I love our young stars. I'm just saying.

Can you say that like Trump, though? We love our young stars. We've got Zendaya. You're going to love it. You're going to love it. Oh, Glenn Powell. Glenn Powell is the future Doesn't get to carry a movie at the box office

Hangman they called him He's supporting if he's the lead It goes to streamers They call him Zank ladies and gentlemen I don't know They call him Zank I like that we're all of us are Trump sounds Like a Borscht Belt comic I don't know how to do Trump

And I said to him I said take my life Hey Melania, he says. Anatomy of a fall, was he pushed? It's like I'm now doing the whole festival season. That zone, there's a lot of interest in that zone. Very bad things happening in that zone. Somewhere between Trump and Zoidberg. He has three daughters, what can I say?

Oh, boy. He has three daughters What can I say? Oh boy So that's enough on Benjamin Button That's enough on Benjamin Button Says David Sims I think it's the truth The truth that I say that Now that we're all newborn babies I think it's time to wrap up

Yeah merchandise There's nothing Well I know the criterion thing Is kind of interesting I have the criterion Which is a fake criterion essentially what do you mean well there would be think because criterion you know part of their thing is like their their curation art what do they allow in right and there are people like wes anderson who have a pre-existing deal his early films uh touchstone disney would be like yeah we'll let criterion release it

and having a bigger, more commercial film would help finance the restorations of smaller, foreign, older films, whatever. Now he puts in his contract whenever he makes a new movie after four or five years, the rights revert to Criterion. It goes to them. What have you, right? Fincher basically, Paramount, like, prepped the Blu-ray, did all the special features. And then he was like, I would like for this to be a Criterion movie. And Paramount basically paid to license Criterion as branding. Yep.

And they threw the C on it, but they physically made the thing. It's basically their Blu-ray in a Criterion sleeve is all it really is. But even the sleeve, it's like, this isn't what the Criterion art would look like. They took the poster, they put the Criterion. It's like the one time people bought the Honorific. And Fincher has, like, legit,

I mean, game, I guess this is only other Criterion movie. Yeah, I think that's right. Well, we're waiting on Mank.

No, Mank, is there a Mank disc? No, it was a false report. It still might happen. There's no Mank disc. I'm sure it'll happen.

The whole problem with him is it's not, people are like, people are like, why won't anyone make this? A blue rank? There you go. A blank? Brank?

A blue rank. Why won't people make this? It's like, because Fincher has to sign off on it, and he's going to take forever to sign off on it. That's what's been holding up the 7-4K. 100%. You need to inspect every single fucking pixel of the thing. Yes, you know.

But yeah, no, Benjamin Button's the one where it's like no that was by all intents and purposes for all intents and purposes uh a a paramount blu-ray that just had this little criterion c on it it's interesting it is it's certain forms on the internet people are still they're still mad about it that fake c that crooked c You hit it The very end Oh my Okay It's Time to end the episode

Time to end the episode I can't believe we have to record Meet Joe Black right after this I know You have to watch Meet Joe Black right after this So we'll be done at midnight We're doing every one

Of our Fincher records Paired as a back-to-back With a breast record And then we're gonna sit On the breast service For four years I mean I know you guys have, this has been said so many times, and you guys

have talked about yourselves. Martin Breast is a perfect season. No, we'll do. It's a fascinating season. And if we don't do them, it's to piss you off. You who's listening, who cares about us. And not the royal you, not all of you, the one person right now where you're thinking, is it me specifically?

Yes, it's you. I'll say that we did, the other day, we finally locked in an early 24 miniseries. That's one of the people we've been talking about forever who's always just been a like, we'll do them at some point, we'll do them at some point. We just finally went, let's just do it. We've gotten to a certain point,

not that the show has an end in sight, but we've been doing this for eight years. Some of those people on the inevitable list were like starting to pull them off and be like, let's just fucking do it. Yep. It's time. You know,

we, uh, we're all going to die someday. Yeah. And hopefully we'll die as little wrinkle list babies or giant ones in my, in my case. Yeah. Uh,

Richard, thank you for being here as always. Thank you for having me. This was very fun. 13. Is this lucky number 13? uh, me,

I don't know. Maybe with the bonus episode. All right, here we go. David, look it me. This was very fun. 13? Is this lucky number 13? Oh, I don't know. Maybe with the bonus episode. David, look it up as we're wrapping up. Anything you want to plug, Richard? Little Gold Man, my podcast at VF and my writing at VF.com. If you are in the mood for a five-year-old YA novel, you could read

All We Can Do Is Wait. It's called All We Can Do Is Wait. Written by me. Yeah. It's your 12th. Lady. Vanilla. Ryan. Widowmaker. Spanglish.

Home. Big. Eyes. Big guys. Big guys. Philly. Witches. Dog. Spartacus. Yeah. And then Troll trolls makes 13 but that's and then trolls make 13 and of course a troll's does your your your trolls are coming back to

theaters they're banding together yeah um i mentioned you didn't plug that well my trolls and i've had a falling out unfortunately because uh they are upset about my labor practices and residuals. So they're striking with their little signs, little bastards. But we'll see. Branch. I will welcome them back with open arms. The Trolls United will never be defeated. Poppy.

They should be happy with what they're getting. Well. Yeah. Well, well, well. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show.

Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. J.J. Birch for our research. A.J. McKee and Alex Barron for our editing. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including

our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, where we do commentaries on film series and other stuff. We're doing the Pierce Brosnan Bonds right about now. Right? Yeah. And we'll have done the Fincher music video episode, some fun stuff over there. We also unlock every 10 days an old episode from three years ago for free if you want to sign up for that. That episode is Aliens.

Well, look at that timing. With a dollar sign. Look at that timing. And coming up soon will be the previous Alien 3 episode. Yes. No, that's not the one where Ben falls asleep.

That's Resurrection. But something to look forward to. Yep. Tune in next week for the social network a movie that made some cultural impact uh yeah bit of a big movie kind of an anti-benjamin button yeah and that's a movie that people will never stop talking about it feels like ever no they should just make a sequel because there's so much has changed but yeah yeah yeah uh tune in for that uh and as always uh this episode how long has it been

uh shorter than two hours and 38 minutes but it feels a lot longer i forgot that was coming