Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Game with Brendan Hines

Episode Date: September 24, 2023

Congratulations! If you are listening to this episode, it means you’ve discovered the key in the mouth of the wooden clown we placed in your driveway. Actor, musician, and handsome man Brendan Hines joins us this week as we lead you on an immersive, life-changing experience through David Fincher’s The Game. We understand you may have some questions. How much did this whole thing cost? Is cocaine a requirement for every Michael Douglas movie? What’s Deborah Kara Unger up to these days? Did Charles Martinet say “it’s a-meeee, daddio!” when he jumped off the roof? We will try our best to answer these enquiries, but please note that CRS is not liable to disclose all of its innerworkings to clients. Guest Links:  Listen to Brendan’s music This episode is sponsored by:  Babbel (babbel.com/check) Zocdoc (zocdoc.com/check)  Bombas (bombas.com/check CODE: 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

discovering the object of the podcast is the object of the podcast uh very good that's the newsman yes right he had that kind of voice sure yeah is that a real guy yes well i don't mean like is he made up he was a but he's a real newscastronic that's what you're asking but also he was daniel shore he was an mpr newscaster. Yeah, those are his credits, they're all newscaster credits. And then I guess a collection of fake newscaster credits as well. I feel very, very justified in assuming that that was meant to be Dan Rather, or somebody a little bit more recognizable. That would be cool if it was Peter Jennings, whatever.

A wolf Blitzer. Well,itzer well sure i mean blitzer will do anything yeah it would now you would get blitzer no offense to wolf blitzer if he's the man just he'll do a cameo you'd get blitzer you'd get cooper cooper will do any of these things tapper kiernan pat kiernan well pat kiernan he's the king of this but that's only if it takes place in new york this film takes place in San Francisco. Right, but he is definitely... Yes, he's happy to do it. Pat Kiernan must have an incredible residuals rundown.

If you look at his yearly... You know? He's in The Avengers. Yeah, he probably gets some cash. Just the quantity of that. No, no, no, I know. But he's also... He's in some big boys.

Can I brag? Jake Tapper, Wolf Blitzer, Pat Kiernan all follow me on Twitter. Jesus Christ. Oh, no. Well, can I brag? Yeah. Alex Jones. Does he?

On Blue Sky? Yeah. Oh, good. On Mastodon? No. No, no, no. I'm not joining Blue Sky. I don't think they let him on that one.

Here's, here's, I'm putting out an APB. No one send me an invite to Blue Sky. This isn't me negging people. It's the, me negging people. You don't want in. I don't want in. I haven't invited you. I want to go down with the show. I've invited six people so far and you weren't one of them. The last couple of weeks, Blank Check listeners have been doing, and here's another APB. If I don't know you in real life, don't send me a DM that starts with like, hey, Griffey baby. Oh, wait, no, no, no, no, no. I think you should retract that. You never know who you want to do that.

You would be astonished. I'm not like saying this because three people have done this. I'm like 50 strangers a year message me and go Griffey baby. Griffey baby. Yeah. Is this a reference to something specific? No. This is just people who think that you would enjoy that. Yeah.

Or here you go, King. Blue sky invite. I don't want to join. I appreciate the thought. It's considerate. I don't want to join. Oh, I see. They're trying to get you on there.

Yeah, sure. I mean, but right. No. Yes. Only one of those has been anyone I've ever spoken to in real life. Brendan, you're not really a social media guy, right? Smartly. Not anymore.

Pushed away. Oh, you once were? Yeah. I mean, I was on Twitter for a few years sure um i have some of your favorite accounts by some of my favorite tweets oh boy um i actually saved a bunch of my favorite tweets recently oh boy i'm sure when i canceled my twitter account which was around 2018 i'm pretty i'm sure I downloaded all of the pertinent information, but I don't know. I mean...

You also hired a calligraphist, too. Yeah, and I had them all framed. Transcribe all your faves. They're hanging in one room in my house. It's a hidden room. It's locked. And you don't have the key. I don't have the key.

But they do exist there. My wife doesn't know it exists. Nope. It's a private room. It's a panic room. You know how Twitter will, every week now, it'll feel like, is this the last day of Twitter? You know, another wall falls off.

And people will start those threads of like, hey, post your favorite tweets in here. You know, all timers. And I was just scrolling through one and I was like, I'm going to screenshot some of these because I think I'm getting close to being done with Twitter. I do just want to save such, you know, like... Wait, yours? No, no, no, just famed tweets.

That gave my life. I still have my number one uncontested favorite of all time. Okay, which is? I'm paraphrasing here, but I believe it is thoughts and prayers to my little nephew. Ain't nothing wrong with him. His face just looks like a damn honey bun. It's a classic, and it does. There's a picture, just looks like a damn honey bun it's a classic and it does there's a picture and it does and you look at

the photo and it does i don't know if this one's old or recent but i i liked i saw one recently um that someone sent to me which was something like reservations are so ridiculous you walk in you're like here i'm here for my spaghetti appointment thanks see there's so many good what a bounty there is just but now increasingly buried in a you know mountain of shit yeah absolute shit um here's a here's a fun one uh twitter keeps on giving me promoted posts for a podcast mini-series that seems to have the goal of exonerating kevin space have you been getting this one as well oh yeah goal of exonerating kevin spacey have you been getting this one as well oh yeah look there's produced by kevin spacey i hope that check was good that's all i'm gonna say to the production team and host of that show there's so few people who want to

advertise on twitter i think it's pretty easy to get out there yeah yeah an unavoidable campaign for me to start getting my name out there on twitter.com um Kevin Spacey truther is just a thing you think wouldn't exist and look we will have talked about him David is steering the car off the road just trying to like get off the highway

here yeah uh yeah that's true we're going to talk about him uh we will have talked about him re7 yes um but we're recording this that's the only Fincher movie he's in yes he produced We're going to talk about him. We will have talked about him. We will have done him. Re7. Yes. But we're recording this. That's the only Fincher movie he's in, right? Yes. He produced Social Network. Oh, and then, of course, they did House of Cards.

And he produced Social Network. He brought the script to Fincher. For Social Network? He optioned the book and was the one who got Fincher on board. Cool. Is it? You seem to love that. Oh, I'm happy the Social Network got made. Me board. Cool. Is it? You seem to love that. Oh, I'm happy the social network got made.

Me too. What do you want from me? We're recording this episode before our seven episode because of our guest who is in New York now. Right. And will not be when we're more deeply into Fincher. True, true, true, true. This is our second Finch episode,

but an early Finch. I'm biting my tongue because I really bet I wanted to do seven. Yes. But happy to be here for the game. Look, there was a bit of a game in terms of arranging the pieces on the board for this. That's right. Our number one prerogative in life is to never do a Zoom episode ever again. Look, it's going to happen. We're going to have to, but a Zoom episode ever again.

Look, it's going to happen. We're going to have to, but as few as we can. We do feel like we perhaps, knock on wood, carved out a six-month run for ourselves. I know, but I think we're going to jinx it. There's going to be a couple. One's definitely going to fall through and maybe another one. We'll see. But we're going to largely avoid doing Zoom. You did Zoom with us once, and it's weird.

Yeah, it wasn't my favorite way to do it, but I had a blast. And who you are. And also introduce the second guest of this episode. This is, of course, Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about exonerating Kevin Spacey. Yes.

No, it's not. It's a podcast about filmographyies, directors who experience massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want, and sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce through breakaway glass onto a giant airbag baby.

What a film we are talking about. I think you got the better film. Oh. I said it. Wow. I said it, and I think Seven is awesome. I'm not like anti-seven right i think this is better i think fincher would uh and i've this i've interviewed fincher you know like i'm gonna be bragging about that a lot i forgot to brag about it the first episode uh i think he would scoff at me for saying that but

i think that this is to be a fertile conversation. He does not seem to love this movie. I maybe land in the middle on it. This film is a masterpiece. That's wild. Okay, you're going to have to fucking explain yourself here. Really? I think this movie is solid.

I think this movie is not seven. Sure. Which is, I think, what I thought when I walked out of the theater in 1997. That's certainly what I got tagged with. It's maybe like a 7 out of 10. Ben? Loved it. Yeah!

Game, game, game, game, game. Ben and I have... We're talking about the CW sitcom, right? Yeah. Remember that? Producer Ben also asked right before we recorded if JJ, our researcher, had put together a dossier on the game The Rapper, which he did not. It just feels like

it should be part of the conversation. How many episodes do you think the game, the American sitcom, ran for? 122. Episodes.

Correct. 148. Jesus! Nine seasons on three networks. Okay, WB. Nope. So it starts on UPN.

Correct. Then to CW. Yes. And then to BET. Correct. Wow. So it starts on UPN. Correct. Then to CW. Yes. And then to BET. Correct. Wow. Did six seasons on BET. It's such a good name for a rapper.

Isn't it also the name of a pickup artist? Well, that was his sort of his Tao. The game was his philosophy. Oh, the game is how he. He is mystery, but then he teaches you how to play the game. Organizing principle. Yes. Peacocking, necking.

Right. That was mostly it, right? Yeah, those were the two steps. And that game is still with us today, sadly. I see it and I overhear it on dates out in public. Well, you live in Los Angeles. Now, you do overhear a lot of dates. And you overhear a lot of dates.

I actively eavesdrop on dates. Do you have one of those big, old-timey... Yeah, he's like a Professor Calculus. He's got a trumpet that he puts in his ear. I don't need one. I have exceptional hearing. Hey! What?

Too good, in fact. It's too good. It's so good, it gives me panic attacks. Well... Oh, like that you're like Superman. You hear too much. You can hear too much. And you want to play the Superman-esque man.

That's true. And I... One letter off. That's true one one letter off more like super ian right supreme yeah uh and his name was ian on the show right look his pseudonym no no i'm joking never had one yeah superion did not have a that was that was season three shit yeah you know that was in that pile of season three shit we didn't get to jen salky did not see fit to get to that no point and to be fair you probably shouldn't have led in the meeting with salky with like That was in that pile of season three shit we didn't get to do. Well, Jen Salke did not see fit to get to that plot point. And to be fair, you probably shouldn't have led in the meeting with Salke with like, we'll finally learn Superion's name. She's like, wait, that's what you got?

She's like, unless his name is I'm a ghost, I'm not interested. No, her response to that was, who are you? Yeah. I don't think that show is on my network. The bathroom is to the right if that's what you're looking for. Yeah, I've never heard of the tick. No, here we are. Here we are.

Let's talk about David Fincher's The Game. Films. David Fincher. The Curious Pot of Benjamin Bloodcast. Favid Dincher. Favid Dincher. As I like to call him. We dare call him Favid Dincher.

This movie stars Daiko Mugles. Our guest today, returned to the show second time first time in person hello oh yeah brennan hines i am happy to be here with my dear friends phenomenal actor phenomenal phenomenal king amongst men pretty good but pretty good but there's a second guest also in studio yeah and he's breaking a record yeah the first ever in studio dog guest true in the history of blank check well he's sleeping his name is earl hey and there is a plot twist that we have not revealed to you david and to you ben earl is pregnant it is earl's birthday today. Oh my god! We have an Eaton Studio birthday! Dog birthday!

How old is Earl? He's seven. Great age for a dog. Seven? Yeah. Sort of right in the middle there. S-E, backwards, numeral. He's kind of similar.

Like, seven in dog years is 49. And in the game, Michael Douglas is turning 48. Is he not? Well, they have adjusted the math on that. Apparently it's a little more nuanced than just multiplying by seven. Not one for nuance. I like to live in the 90s.

Well, then. Keep it simple, stupid. No, what's the nuance now? I don't remember specifically. It's like the bigger the dog, the faster they age. The smaller dogs can age. It's all of them after a certain age, age more slowly. So it's not just an always seven thing.

It's just like they hit a certain, they go quickly, they age quickly at first, and then they slow down. So it's some different. But he's in his, you know, robust prime of his life. He is killing it. He's the best behaved dog I've ever known. Or whatever. He's resting. We were talking about right before we recorded that you would bring earl to set every single day and that is

usually playing with fire on a set where people need to be quiet at very specific times he's quiet dogs don't know about no red lights going off no they don't know about sound speed no earl earl never fucked up a take never fucked up a take he was always really good especially since like he does get a little anxious when i the the the further the distance between me and him becomes sure um because we're soulmates and so i would go to shoot and he would watch very attentively and then someone like carrie would like hold him on her lap the great carrie smith michael douglas's hairdress and this is why i brought it up and this is why i did that yes and anyway and he would be quiet and then when they would yell cut and i would walk back to him yeah he would he would he would give me high fives and he'd give you notes he'd

give you a couple notes yeah they would they were painful notes yes he just said he's not afraid to you know lay it on hands on um carrie must have already been working with douglas at this point right yeah yeah he's got great hair yeah always has carrie's kind of iconic who is who is the head of the hair department on the tick her two main main guys she works with. And you'll find that most hair and makeup people at a certain height in the industry usually are like, I have like two or three stars who I always follow on to all of their projects. And then I will take gigs in between. And her two are Michael Douglas and Kiana. Two great heads of hair.

That's what I was going to say. That's Reeves, baby. It's Reeves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Two great heads of hair. That's what I was going to say.

That's Reeves, baby. It's Reeves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But just like some incredible hair work across decades on both of those guys. Yes. Yeah.

Yes. And she has incredible material to work with. Yeah, she did on the tick, too. I don't know why you're like, mm, me. Yeah, sure. Yes. Yeah, you had good hair on the tick. You had great hair on the tick. Chris' hair mostly concealed.

Did the helmet. Sometimes seen. Tick's hair never seen The tick himself He's always in the He's skinny, he has no hair Does he have no hair? What's a part of the thing? He never has taken the suit off

I have never thought of it And now that you've forced me to I'm upset We've never seen his hair. No. No pubes either. Warburton didn't. No pubes.

No, he has tons of pubes. He does have pubes. His head pubes. No hair, though. Right, right. That's actually technically what's on his head. Yeah. Michael Douglas, just a great head of hair.

Yeah. Like, obviously, the sort of, like, China syndrome Michael Douglas, right? Like, early Michael Douglas, he has this mane. It's absolutely incredible. But even in this, he's like, you're like, guys would kill for this hair. Like, you know, guys on the edge of 50 or whatever. This is what they want.

I was walking into a Broadway show a couple of months ago. Which one? Good Night, Oscar. Ah, Sean Hayes. And it was the Broadway. Fashion away on that piano. He really did. And it was the opening night. show a couple of months ago which one good night oscar david ah sean hayes bashing away on that piano he really did and it was the opening night over every great black actor in america what i didn't say he did yeah he really did he sure did um he said that during the performance he says it every night and then they gave it while he's playing the piano

steven mckinley henderson and both the Top Dog Under the Cock guys can eat my dust I'm fucking Jack from Will and Grace and I'm doing a voice the most successful podcast in America I keep kicking my head

over it it's usually the David move and he really can play the piano yes right anyway all the stars

were there lucky Luciano David back from the debt David Detweiler whoever that is i don't know um anyway douglas was in front of me when i was walking in and by the way the hair yeah still got it still got it white as good man is white as a as an eighth ball of cocaine but it is looking good he went i feel he went right white at the correct moment. He picked his spot to go white. He's got that Kaminsky money going

in there. How old was he when filming this? He's a little, I think, slightly older than his character. I would hope so because I am 47. 46 and a half. Go off. He was 53

when he made this he's playing a 48 he's playing 48 he's saying he's gonna turn 48 yeah right cause he did

he he sells it well yeah but also I was gonna say he did like his full movie star ascension moment happened a little

late for him uh yeah well cause he was producing we did our romancing the stone episode talked about that a

lot where he just really like he did what was it streets of san francisco he sure did and then he was the the punk you know youngster on that one right he was he was producing a lot he had a long period where he was just like i'm never gonna be my father right i'm never gonna be that level of movie star better produce my own work and get bigger stars to play the bigger roles right i mean the big one is cougar's nest obviously which right he basically fires his own dad from being in right uh then he is in coma a good movie michael crichton yep directed by crichton correct this is before or after looker i think that's his first movie am i wrong it? It is before. Looker is his fifth movie. Crichton directed it.

Crichton directed a lot. Oh, yeah. Looker is batshit. Yeah, his movies are... I think he's a good director. You guys should do a Crichton. Great Train Robbery? The only problem with doing Crichton is it's like,

then how much do you want to expand your sort of, you know, other things, like all the adaptations as well? There's so many great Frighten adaptations. Well, that's a Patreon series. I think it's too long to be a Patreon series. We'd pick. We'd cherry pick.

We'd have to pick. Yeah. All right. Let me see if I can. And we would not do Jurassic Park. No. Because, like, we can do those other times. Yes.

It would be, like, Andromeda Strain. Mm-hmm. I think we would do The Terminal Man. George Seagal against computers. Oh, I've never seen that. You must do Looker. Well, that's him directing, so we'll do that. But I'm trying to think of like, if we do a spin-off series that's adaptations of Crichton books. Oh, right.

That he didn't direct. You do Rising Sun. Speaking of Mikey D, you do Disclosure. I forgot that's a Crichton. You do Congo. Yes. Bruce Campbell. Cameo

You gotta look at the sphere Gotta check it out Yeah Right now Very sphere vibes Too a lot of undersea business Happening in the news For sure

And then maybe Do the 13th warrior And timeline Well 13th warrior We'd save for Save that for McTiernan Yeah Do we have to do timeline

I think you have to do timeline I don't know the 13th warrior It's sort of a famous flop. One of the most costly financial disasters in the history of studio filmmaking. Starring? Antonio Banderas. Heard of him. But it was like a movie that cost over $100 million 20 years ago and made like less than 10.

Oh, God bless. Like disastrous. God bless. Yeah. People weren't ready for there to be a 13th Warrior. They only wanted 12 12 was the max They didn't want a Baker's Dessert

I guess, because China Syndrome is a big movie But he's the third lead in that He did produce that That's what he would sort of do He'd be like, I'll be one of the guys in it And I think he really doesn't His breakout is romantic This brings up something that i did notice

watching this movie which was this is one of the more sympathetic uh semi-likable michael douglas leads it's on that edge of like well he's kind of an asshole you know that i looked it up and i think i think the most likable he could he ever achieved is the american president and that's a very he's a very powerful but but very powerful person right yeah right uh but he is he's generally genuinely generally yeah pretty unlikable and also no ass in this one oh you don't see it don't see the toe and at no point i think does he don a sweater no which he loved to do he he almost throws a woman up against the wall but doesn't quite he definitely grabs her by the arm a few times yes his daddy liked to do that a lot too um he handles cocaine i was about to say though but he doesn't take any he's nearly near cocaine

i mean but you know it's enough to just see him holding his cocaine. He's around. In the Douglas universe, you gotta touch the cocaine. Yes. Yeah. Just at least a little... Let me give you his asshole run.

Or, you know, maybe some nice guys sprinkled in. It's most of the 80s and the early 90s. We're gonna recap. But we did our Romancing the Stone episode.

We did. That is the thing where he's producing and he's developing that script at some point and he's like, should I just play the guy? He does not on paper totally make sense for

that role. Certainly not what he had done up until that moment. And from that moment on... But he is hot. He is. So hot. But he's also like, there's something so like seedy and yuppie about him and that's supposed to be this like, like it's, that's written to be like a Bruce Campbell role. Right? I mean, I do think, right, he

correctly identifies like, I can play this guy as kind of a straight scumbag and it'll work. And then it's like, oh, surprisingly, you've now finally found your movie star persona. And then he just, like, kicks it into the next gear with this scumbag run where his star just multiplies. He wins an Oscar for playing a scumbag. And he's basically just like, this is what people want. I'll just be consistently the worst person in the world. And audiences love to watch me, like, get away with shit or be tortured.

Romancing the Stone. Yes. Jewel of the Nile. The sequel. This is the scum run? Yeah. Chorus line. He's in that.

He's the scummy director. Right. Not scummy, but, you know, he's the mean director. It's like, it's sort of a glorified cameo, right? Right. I mean, well, it's all the girls, you know. God, they hope they get it. I hope they get it.

Fatal attraction. Heard of it? Yeah. In which he is, of course, the sympathetic protagonist, but he's a scumbag. Total scumbag. Getting what he deserves, in a way. And that's the story. I think he's at a test screening for that.

And one of the Paramount executives comes up to him and goes like, I don't know how you do it. And he's like, what? And he's just like, we will watch you cheat on your wife, and the next scene, the audience is like back in your court. Right. Well, is that because of how they made Close play it in a way that she was not comfortable playing it? Yes, I think that's part of it. As I like to right now playing yes i think that's part of it as i like

to right now say i think that's part of it but he just had some weird power yes it still does but especially in this 80s 90s around douglas where it's just like he kind of never loses the audience even movie star shit it's some really dark movie star energy his dad absolutely had it yeah bad and the beautiful, Ace in the Hole. Absolutely. Like could be such a piece of shit that you just like, he's so goddamn compelling. Yes.

And he's feral and fully committed to every, to being as much of a scumbag as possible. Kirk Douglas is scary. Michael Douglas is more slimy. Yeah. But they both, you know, what's the Kirk Douglas line? I love it. In Ace in the Hole. I've met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you, you're slimy. Yeah. But they both, you know, what's the Kirk Douglas line? I love it. In Ace in the Hole.

I've met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you, you're 20 minutes. Hey. Great Billy Wilder line. Okay, so, Fatal Attraction. Humongous. Wall Street wins an Oscar. Yeah.

Gordon Geico. And there's a quote, I think it was in the dossier that JJ put together, that he's like, that was the scummiest I had ever gone. Just like, unrepentant, and I won an Oscar for it. So you start to go, everyone's like, I guess scummiest i had ever gone just like unrepentant and i won an oscar for it

so you start to go i guess this is what i do now like why wouldn't why would i stop doing fail attraction wall street they're the same year yes he's truly on top black rain uh underrated ridley scott uh movie he's like a dark cop in that he's like i mean he did never looked cooler gun glasses yeah very coked up movie. Yes. War of the Roses. Really good movie. Also very dark.

A hit, too. A hit. Like one of the top ten hits of the year. I remember it so well as a kid, but didn't know it was a hit.

Yeah. Something called Shining Through. Melanie Griffith. World War II drama. Okay. I don't know much about that one.

All right. Basic Instinct. Uh-huh. The coke's back. The coke's back. The butt's back. The butt is back, throwing women up against walls nonstop. Now you look at this and you're like,

what? He was really an actor who took on really interesting projects. Like, God bless, we don't get any of this anymore because then it's falling down, which is not my favorite movie, but it's a,

that's a risky movie to make. It's a fascinating movie. You know, again, playing basically an unsympathetic protagonist who you're going to be with. It's a really fucked up movie. It's a risky movie to make you know again playing basically an unsympathetic protagonist who you're gonna be with it's a really fucked up movie it's a little fucked up i've revisited it r.i.p frederick forrest by the way yeah just died oh yeah but uh yeah it's um it's a hard watch um disclosure which is a bad movie but was a huge hit humongous in which once again he's like what can i do i'm getting sexually harassed by one of the hottest women alive. One of the top ten films of that year.

For me. Huge hit. As well. Like, he's basically, he's a top ten box office star every year. Every year the moms and dads want to go see Mikey Douglas. Yes. In an R-rated film. Horny Michael Douglas.

Dick in his way through Shitsville. I think in our basic instinct episode, I think I said he was America's dark id for the 90s. Right. Like, he just was the embodiment of everything. I think Disclosure is where it starts to, I think we see the decline on the charts. It curdles a little. Yeah. Because it was such a gross film for so many reasons.

But then The Swerve, American president, an enduring cable classic, and hit at the time. He's nice. Look what he does. Single dad president. Yeah. He just wants to be in love. And then he gives a big monologue. Classic Aaron Sorkin monologue, which is essentially, leave me alone.

Hey, be nice. I'm nice. Ghost in the Darkness, kind of an underrated, fun, you know. I always forget about that movie. Period Hunter movie with Kilmer. This year, The Game uh the next year perfect murder which is not very good and similarly they're trying to go for that vibe again shot in 3d or attempts at 3d because it was dialing for murder was shot the original this one no i think

they tried a gimmick really this one let's i'm not seeing any 3d mentioned here dial in for murder has 3d like old-fashioned incredible 3d yeah i think there is some sort of reference to 3d in this movie just talking about fika mortensen's handsomeness it popped out of me yes it's three-dimensional it smooched me on the mouth in the theater and then in 2000 bit of a comeback wonder boys uh which he's wonderful my favorite performance of him then Traffic, which is a huge fucking hit. Yeah. And he's sort of the more sympathetic version of, like, this kind of a guy. Right. Similarly, like, in over his head,

rich guy who doesn't get how the world works right, you know, but, you know, more sympathetic because he's like, where's my daughter? Give me back my daughter sort of vibes. If you darn drugs. Drugs took my daughter, I will get them. Topher Grace. There are two great Fincher quotes on Douglas that JJ dug up. One is, I like to subvert expectations.

I hope the game is entertaining, but it's also a little prurient. Prurient. Prurient. Prurient. A little sadistic because you enjoy the suffering anxiety of the central character. You want to see him learn a lesson, and nobody embraces that quite as eagerly as Michael Douglas. Yes. He does have that weird balance where people like to watch him get away with shitty things.

And they also like to watch him. Yes. Learn a lesson. Get his comeuppance. What have you. And then he said the thing about Michael is that he gives you an interesting cachet because his name promises entertainment. But it also promises friction. Yep. he's incredibly

successful in mainstream and yet he stole the fascists from falling down yes the adulterer from fatal attraction he allows himself to get into tough spots and then sort things out yeah he usually he doesn't die no usually um he does usually kind of get away with it but he dies in falling down right that one he does yes um yeah definitely but um you know largely i feel like it's like much like in the game it's kind of like he goes through hell and back but then at the end he's kind of like okay okay okay you know yeah and wall street he goes to jail but then of course money never slept and now he came never slept it woke up. You know, in the 2000s, he shifts, I feel like, into more daddy mode. He also starts working a lot less.

I don't know. I mean, he did a few. Don't say a word. Don't say a word. You never tell. The Sentinel. It ran in the family. That's a disaster.

You mean to pray? The Douglases. The In-Laws. Right. The remake with Albert Brooks. Alan Ar alan arkin rip and uh ryan uh reynolds the sentinel as you said that's like a sort of cia movie or secret service movie yeah yeah you mean dupree but that then now he's really kind of in debt you know ghost girlfriends pass he's not on the poster anymore not so much much. I mean, Money never slapped him there. He was back.

Yes. Soderbergh likes to use him a lot. Right. Puts him in Haywire. Yeah. Puts him, obviously, in probably his best recent performance behind The Candelabra. Yeah, that's, I guess, that is his best work ever. Right?

You think that's his best work ever? Might be. It's a very good performance. You said Wonder Boys was your favorite. Wonder Boys is kind of a really, that's a real sort of Mount Rushmore performance. I find him so funny.

R.I.P. Curtis Hanson. Yeah. But, did they throw Curtis on the bracket too? C.H.? Sure. Yeah. But,

Candelabra I watch like once a year. That's, look, I really like that movie. movie yeah i think it's great yeah i think it's so well acted him and dame are incredible roblo hilarious yeah i think it's interesting to watch it once a year are you sure about that it is so bizarrely compelling it is i love that movie it's great yeah it's an underrated film have you seen behind the candelabra yeah i loved it i haven't seen it since the first time I saw it.

Yeah, you're like 99% of America in that regard. Wait, that was Soderbergh? Yeah. Yeah. I totally forgot that. That was his retirement film. That was his I'm making one last one. It was at Cannes.

Yeah. But then HBO just put it on HBO. They wouldn't put it in theaters. Also, just go back real quick. Haywire is fucking great. Haywire rocks. I need to watch Haywire. One note. I don't know what's going on. It makes great haywire rocks everyone knows i don't know what's going on it makes no sense to me that's but i don't care i like it because it doesn't

try to fucking explain anything things just happen and the things that happen are good and cool yeah i like haywire yeah where's here where's fun who does he play in haywire he's like the first role guy okay i think like he's, right? He's early in the film. The first guy is Channing Tatum. I guess, yeah. He's the second guy. He, like, gives her the assignment, maybe. Yeah.

You know, he's like a CIA boss. Paxton's her dad? Paxton's her dad. Yeah. Douglas is, like, the guy standing next to the big private plane in the airport hangar kind of scene. Sure. You know, Fassbender has the biggest fight and then Ewan McGregor is surprisingly

the final boss. Yes. And you're like, I would have swapped these. And Banderas turns out to kind of be mastermind. Oh, I forgot about Banderas. You got me there.

I remember him having a big bushy beard. He's in it. Oh, right. Yeah. Antonio Banderas, one of my favorite actors, literally one of my favorite actors

of all time, one of my favorite working actors, but no one is more ready to just be in a movie yeah like it's like how's the role bad i think i'll do it anyway you know like right and he doesn't phone it in but he's also not adding anything to it he clearly is just kind of like oh this is three scenes fine right you get three scenes of it you see him pop up in the uncharted trailer and you're like is he secretly gonna rule in this you're like absolutely not no he's just going to show up and hit the marks and collect his track and bring the energy he's got the best energy and he has a very similar role in indiana jones yeah where he shows up and you're like are we with antonio for the last act

of this yeah and then he's like gotta go i'm gonna fine you know he probably was just like i'll work with spielberg sure yeah I'll do a scene. But it's not Spielberg. It's not even fucking Spielberg. You're right. I'll work with Mangold, though. I'd work with Mangold.

I'd do it. De Palma put in a good word for him after Femme Fatale, probably. All the glitters is Mangold. Yeah. So, it's a sterling career,

Michael Douglas, I would say. And this is sort of, right. I mean, he's pretty pretty much the tail end of his peak yes yes right yes big movie yes big movie budget what's the budget 60 70 million dollars that is massive wild for 25 years the reason for that is twofold one michael

douglas is is a big star big titty star He's a big tittied star, according to Griffin. Yes, with that giant rack. Two, Seven was a gigantic hit. And Seven doing so well, despite being rated R and having spiky dildos and heads in boxes, I think convinced people like, okay, you can make an R-rated movie a hit. This is also, of course, a film that was distributed by Polygram. We can talk about this. Who are not, you know, a studio.

No, this was basically their main attempt at becoming a blockbuster distributor themselves. So I think they probably were kind of like, look, whatever it costs, like, we want this project. We need a marquee statement. Look at who we're attracting big director big star that and that's like michael douglas uh was very hesitant to do the movie only for that reason you introduced brendan right yeah brendan hines is here i would love another introduction he's back if we're handing them out from the tick from macgyver From? The Tick. From MacGyver. From Lidemy. From Lock and Key.

What's Roth like? You can answer off mic. Okay. What episode were you on previously? What was the series you were doing? Crime Wave. Crime Wave. Ramey.

Ramey. Ramey. Yeah. That was a fun movie. Was it? Yeah, boing. Yeah, it's a fun stuff. Ben loved it. Ben loved it. Absolutely. Ruled. Yeah. That's good fun movie. Was it? Yeah, boing. Yeah, it's a fun stuff.

Ben loved it. Ben loved it. Absolutely, it ruled. Yeah. That's good. If I recall correctly. Anyway, right, big budget. Let me tell you. Big titty budget.

Big old titty budget. Fincher's at this point where he's like, Fincher's been doing the most expensive commercial music video shoots, right? Sure, sure. And then like Alien 3 is a lot of money, but they don't give him a lot of control. 70's got more control, but less money money i think now he's finally like great i will do everything exactly the way

i want to right and from this movie on he starts to become a little more like i will budget myself i know which things i need to spend the money on and which things which areas i can save money you don't want the rep of oh that guy that guy's always over budget. Oh, he's always too expensive, blah, blah, blah. Does he have full control of this film? He, I believe, does. We can talk about it. I think he has final cut on pretty much anything he makes. But it's just wild.

The only other Fincher episode we've recorded at this point is Panic Room. Yeah. And it is wild that five years later, Panic Room costs $48. Yeah. So this is $70? Essentially one location. Yeah. This is $70. Essentially one location. Yeah. But even still,

that's like a very intensely constructed film. It's a complicated film, but yes, I think the game is more, right, you're shooting constant night shoots

in San Francisco. It's a big old production. It's also just very expensive to depict the ludicrously rich. It is. You gotta pay up. It doesn't get discussed. Rent these mansions. It's the succession of it all, which starts off, did I press the wrong button?

Am I watching Succession right now? This movie truly does start. Succession ripped it right off. Right off. The sort of Super 8 footage, the memories. Now, David. Depressed looking children, yes. Just because I want to make sure I don't forget this.

I'm watching the opening. I know we'll talk more about the development of this, but I just want to make sure now that Brennan's brought up the opening, the home videos, that I don't forget this. You're watching this succession-y, like 8mm home video footage, haunted sort of father with a tight smile 60s yeah very stern looking child and little blazer and i'm like huh that guy playing the dad looks so much like

the name i'm about to pull out i think i know the name we're about to pull going to make a joke about how much he looks like this guy and then did you two realize it is in fact that guy so i initially thought it was well first i had the thought of like wait is this Kirk Douglas No that doesn't look like Kirk Douglas Then it kind of looked like another And now I can't even remember the name Do you know who it is? I know who it is

And you can reveal it First let me say this I thought briefly it looked like George C. Scott Kind of looks like George C. Scott Which would make sense Uncredited George C. Scott sprinkled in But it is not george c scott it is not you can say the name and i was like how funny that it looks this much like that guy who of course david fincher would never cast in this role how would he have ended up in this movie and then i realized it is in fact

charles martinette voice of mario let's ago himself-go himself. What? My God. Yes. His entire life now, and he's... It's just being Mario. He's pretty... He's like in his late 60s. Right.

Now he has kind of like long white hair, and he's goofy, and he's always on a red carpet going like, it's-a me, you know? Now he has just a dartboard with Chris Pratt's face

in the middle of it. Yeah. Yeah. Look, he did a lot of voices in that movie, at least. He's getting residuals. Yeah, they gave him a very kind cameo where he talks like classic Mario, and the characters basically go,

how fucking annoying would that be for an entire movie? But incredibly bizarre that this is him. Very surprising. I know, I looked up who it was, because I thought it might be George C. Scott. I thought it was Charles Martinet. And I was like, who's this Charles Martinet looking motherfucker? So he had been doing Mario at that point for 10 years. At least.

Yeah. Wow. Had he? Yeah. In the 90s? Because Mario doesn't really speak until around now. I watched a long video with him recently where he recounted his sort of like Mario journey. Yeah. His first Mario credit. Yeah. Mario teaches typing. Right. long video with him recently where he recounted his sort of like mario journey and yeah his first

mario credit yeah mario teaches typing right 94 talk but he that's a go 94 he started working mario taught typing he taught typing in 1994 you know he was trying to make ends meet like vegas like tech conventions right nintendo wanted to show off tech they were playing with so they had a thing where there was a digital mario on a screen right people come up and talk to him and he would be live responding to them and the bit was oh his mouth flaps in real time you know not like very complicated but he was doing a voice but that's how he got hired onto mario i think he was doing like comedy and voices and shit like that. He got hired to be a Las Vegas convention guy.

And then was their live Mario guy. And then started teaching typing. But so yeah, he's Mario. So is this how he got rich enough to buy that massive mansion and have a disaffected child? Right. That was actually, right, his rider. It's right off. He wants to buy me this real mansion on the San Francisco outskirts.

It's right off of Rainbow Road. Right, exactly. Okay, David Fincher, post-7. This is where we're at. He wants to make a film called The Sky is Falling. It sounds wild. Sci-fi action thriller written by Howard Roth and Eric Singer.

Gore Verbinski later tries to take it up and fails to launch it as well. Two clerics on an archaeological dig discover proof that God is actually dead. Cool. Good start. Cool. Yep. Propelled by their new nihilism and loss of faith, they become targets of the world's then overarching religious organization

who hires a terminally ill hitman to track them down after they embark on a drug-induced murder and robbery spree. Why didn't Hollywood want to make this? Sounds very Fincher-y. It doesn't touch any hot buttons. He also tried to make a movie called The Crowded Room. Which is what ends up being the Tom Holland show. Which has been turned into a Tom Holland show like 30 years later.

Multiple personality project. Brad Pitt was interesting. The Milligan. What was the real guy's name? Billy Milligan. Yes. This is based on a book? Yes.

Based on a non-fiction novel. Yes. Based on a real incident. Joel Schumacher was also, was first trying to make it, I think, with Pit. Right. And then he kicks it to Fincher. That didn't match up. Yeah.

Whatever. Then it lingers for many years. Wait, not the game, the Crowded Room you're talking about? Crowded Room. Because the game feels very Joel Schumacher to me. It does. Oh, there is a very, very trashy version of this movie that, like, pretty much almost existed. Because it was

written on spec by these guys john brancato michael ferris who have many credits their name pretty much all of them bad no offense the net didn't they or at least one of them and this movie is like the net is like a god i kind of love the net yeah it's silly fun but it's the bad version of this right you know like they wrote, I mean, a bunch of total nonsense. Into the Sun, Blood Fist 2. But they also wrote Terminator 3 and Terminator Salvation. Right, wild. And a little film called...

Terminator Genesis? No. Catwoman. Oh. Wow. I was going to say say 8mm does feel like Schumacher doing Fincher. 8mm is Schumacher

ripping off 7, yes. Right. And 8mm, in my opinion, is kind of a fun watch. I like 8mm. And the Cage performance is pretty fun and Joaquin is amazing in it.

Yeah. But it is fundamentally not a serious movie. You know, at the end of the day, you're like, this is bullshit. A deeply unserious. What is the George C. Scott you're like, this is bullshit. Deeply unserious. What is the George C. Scott movie?

Hardcore. That movie's good. That's my daughter. Directly ripping off. It's ripping off hardcore in the style of Seven. Right. Those are 90s, nine-inch nails-y kind of. Oh, yes.

And is that Andrew Kevin Walker? Yes. Yes, right. So, the game, these guys write it on spec goes to MGM. Jonathan Mostow. He of Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines. Exactly. Is attached to direct.

Kyle MacLachlan and Bridget Fonda are brought on board to star. It just sounds like a VHS classic. It does. Right? It just sounds like a silly movie. Sounds like a Ben's choice. Right. Yeah.

Absolutely. So, you know, it's kind of, you know, that's circling. All right. So Polygram, who are a record label. Yeah. A Dutch record label. The Dutch. They invest in something called Propaganda Films, David Fincher's music video company.

Yes. Along with Dominic Senna. Swordfish. Yes. And a couple other people. I'm sure we'll talk about that. There was the stat that at their peak, propaganda was responsible for one-third of all music videos being directed for major labels.

The other names, Steve Golan, you know, the guys who are less fit. But the kind of tastemaker, pioneer, top of the heap. They eventually bought propagandaaganda outright. Okay. And they have this script. I think they had bought it off of MGM. And they show it to Fincher.

And they're like, it's called The Game. And Fincher's like, is it like a most dangerous game kind of thing? Don't want that. You're in the tundra for sport. And then he reads it and is like, I like this. First, we can think about how rich this guy is, which will interest me, right? Like delving into that kind of sphere. And then you go into the Kafkaesque, you know, why are they doing this to me and what does it all mean?

He says, this is not a movie about real life. It's a movie about movies. They're putting this guy in a movie, but he doesn't know how to act like a movie star. So he's just running around and flipping out. And grabbing people being like what is going on um and so he brings in i think andrew kevin walker the writer of seven and it's like do a path fix this the big thing i kept reading him say about this movie is that you know he uh loves torturing his audience right but usually he does that by really following the rules of whatever genre he's playing in and then pushing things harder than most directors would, right? Or going deeper, more detailed, whatever.

And he was like, this is a movie that kind of says fuck you to the audience. That gives you nothing to hold on to. It's like, Panic Room we get to later, he's like, that's my experiment making a movie where you're in perfect lockstep. The audience is right there with you. They understand every single move, every inch of the environment. And this is a movie where he's like, I'm making sure you have no idea what anything is at any point in time. It's all about the dispensing of information selectively when I want it. Sure.

Yeah, he's in charge. You're right. you're right you're right i mean look michael douglas isn't what is going on is it the game i would argue that i my beef with this movie is that i never feel like i am being um gamed i never feel like there is never a moment where i'm thinking, oh, this is real. This is really happening. It is my exact problem with this movie as well. It sets up, you're already set up in the world where it's like, oh, is this real?

Is this fake? No, this is the game. This is the game. This is the game. Oh, it's a game. It's a game. It's a game. And you're just thinking, well, now they're shooting them with submachine guns, whatever

they're fucking called. I was about to gunsplain you there. Yeah, I love that. So, I'm just thinking, oh, they went in there and set up all these squibs. All I'm thinking the entire time is, CRS has a lot of money. This is a very expensive game.

Very well funded. You're impressed. You want to buy stock, maybe? Yeah, they have a great, they have just this great they have a great um they have a just this great ensemble of character actors they really incredible all stock players who just hang out in the uh in the commissary junior that guy and you don't even she only says one thing yeah spike Jones? Well, I think he's a real EMT.

He's not one of the players, right? I can never remember. You're going to need a real EMT when he jumps off a building. Yeah, he's post-building. Yeah, because I guess he's the one going like, clear the breakaway glass. But I do think Ben and I were talking about this. Oh, you conspired together before you got in here. We shut it down after a couple of minutes.

We realized we were getting too close save it for the mic save it for the mic so mad no no i have a comeback for you guys later i and look this is less against the movie and more about the way this movie is talked about but i feel like people cite this as like one of those great twist ending movies and i'm like the twist is the movie does the exact thing it tells you it's going to do at the beginning which i don't think is fundamentally a problem but that, but that doesn't make it a twist. Well, I don't know who's out here calling it a twist. I don't know, a fucking screen rant or some shit.

Leave them out of this. They don't know anything. What do they know? What do they know? Movie poop shoot. Well, they're really smart. We'll have to make another conversation. What's your retort, David?

No, I'm going to get to that. I want to give you a little more pre-pro. and you know um he was gonna make this before seven yes but then brad pitt's like i want to make seven and so seven like happens right you know like that's the power of pitt and then seven such a big hit he's like this is better for me because now i can make this movie at an absurd budget i'm gonna get more budget he gets in and he gets akw in there and he's like can you make this guy more of a sort of cynical bastard? We need to work on the protagonist. Like he needs to have more of a thing.

This is the thing I like most about this movie. Yes. I finally clicked for me reading a bunch of these Fincher quotes that he's like, it's a Christmas carol. He's Scrooge. He's not what you think Michael Douglas is when he's playing a master of the universe in a boardroom, which is Gordon Gekko. Right. He is Scrooge. He's like cut. He's walled himself off from the world yes partly because of this

horrible thing that happened to him and partly because capitalism but much like scrooge and unlike most michael douglas characters of this era he is not enjoying his life at the beginning no this guy is fucking scrooge miserable he is but i think well is scrooge scrooge doesn't really enjoy it he's no he's kind of a grump yes a humbug yes but like scrooge is like actively like you know snarling at children in the street right like he's a real asshole this guy i feel like if you pointed a gun at him he'd be like what do you mean i have a great life like look at my nice house right but he's he's dead to the world he's very believe it and he doesn't believe it quite scrooge snarl but i caught the moment when he goes into the crs office for the first time and the woman's

on the phone and he just starts talking yeah he's got a rich holds up her finger i'll just do my retort now yes yeah she holds it and he's just so miffed and he walks away and he's just like how dare you not drop everything i'm talking right so you guys are complaining i'll just get this out now the game is happening to him and of course we know it's the game movie's called the game he's been told the game will happen right and then a bunch of crazy shit happens right that's the game and then he keeps on thinking that was the game up until now but now which is how they're fucking with him of course and it's a good bit yeah And we should salute them and maybe put them in the bit hall of fame for all the fucking bits they're doing in this.

I mean, it's a solid bit work. It's like bits on bits, you know. Yeah. But he is so completely, completely divorced from how reality works because he's so rich that he cannot perceive reality at any point in this movie. Everyone to him is a little ant who is just there to serve him because that is how his life is constructed. And so when life starts... He thinks of everyone else as a character actor. It's like she's a waitress.

Everything she's doing is bizarre, but he's probably just like, oh, well, she's just some Dickensian fucking urchin because he doesn't have any conception of how real people behave because he never interacts with them. He doesn't have any friends. He's at the fucking country club and these two guys are just like ah the game it's good and he's just like well they must know what they're talking about because they they're rich and here right like initially you're like oh he must know those people and then you see them at the end no he says to the guy he's like i don't know you right members right right right right right exactly you know let's say he's but he's just like that's what i love that this movie is basically shaking him out of sure the surreality of being a millionaire yes the christmas carol aspect of it it's a wonderful it's kafka's it's a wonderful life that's my letterboxd review okay it's so fucking good if it's like what if the trial

happened uh-huh but then at the end of the trial it was like see you do have friends and the guy was like oh that's what this was all about whereas obviously in the trial it's just like no this you Uh-huh. been here with me yeah but now you're here i mean what it's the thing penn says at the end of like i didn't know any other way to stop you from becoming a total asshole or something like that or becoming our dad because that's the whole thing one or the other when he talks to ilsa yes his beloved ilsa who's totally in on it yeah uh about his dad and she's like you've never asked me about him and you're like that's psychotic you know one yeah and two she's like you know you just wouldn't even know he was in a room and you're like that's this guy's vibe unless he's being like a corporate asshole and yelling he just he has no personality yeah he he does feel a dead inside and like he feels like one of those like well he threw himself off the building at 50 why yeah i mean he had a mansion

he probably should have been happy did he seem sad i don't know he never talked about yeah no personality right right so it's just such a good like 90s fable of like ah i love pre-911 movies like this so much it's like what's the matter with this guy he's too rich and i'm like i'm sympathetic in a way right you know the the curse of capitalism it's reached this peak yeah i like that uh interpretation of it and i and i had a similar i had a similar one but i kind of also was my my response to it is sort of like yeah so what like it's sort of like a massive intervention therapy session for this guy an evil millionaire yeah thank god this guy feels better about himself now he doesn't know how to change a fucking tire him and sean penn neither of them know how to change a tire

in the middle of the film when the stakes are almost at, not quite at their highest. It's a good bit. They wouldn't know how to do it. It's a great bit, but ultimately at the end, it feels,

it's very shruggy to me. It's very just, it's very just like, oh, he's going to be fine and he may have found a love. A little happiness. Maybe he'll go to mexico where they're going to the airport to have coffee with her because now he's he's a man australia australia it's somewhere far yes he's a man of the people now did you guys watch the alternate ending uh no i i have watched it in the past i have the

criterion um what is the old what because i was reading we're jumping way ahead here right yeah we are we are at the end of the movie the moment the only moment i'm just remembering the first time i saw this film which is probably on dvd like 15 years ago oh you that's the first time we've seen yes i hadn't seen it since um the only moment and i watched it with my my friend my roommate at the time who was like you haven't seen the fucking game? Threw on the DVD immediately and was like, you won't believe this fucking ending, right? And I was just like, the ending better not be the game was happening the whole time. Because I can predict that.

I believe that. So this is your twist ending villain here. Perhaps a little bit, but I just feel like it's always on amazing twist ending listicles and bullshit. I hate to break this to you, but there's lazy writing on the internet. Yes, yes. The moment at the end of the film when the door, he fires the gun,

Deborah Kerr Unger's like, fuck, wait, no, he got a real gun. And she's like, actually shut it down. Truly now, you fucked up. We've lost control for the first time. He sean penn that is the only moment watching the first time where i actually consider for the first time oh is it maybe he's gone one step too far right right it will this be the cruel twist of fate that it was the game the whole time until right at the end he actually and then of course that is undone within uh 30. It feels to me like that was meant to be the original ending.

Yes. And then you get the big drop and the cushiony pillow. So what I had read was that the original ending was the same thing, but he shoots Deborah Cara Unger. Right. And then kills himself. Yes. Does the same, throws himself off the building.

And David Fincher was like, he would not feel remorse. Right. A guy like this to kill himself when he knows that's the thing he's been trying to avoid in his life for shooting someone who's fucking tricked him to this degree his brother he would feel that cursed by right so then i see on the dvd on the criterion ending so like is this i'm like oh this has to be the deborah kerry hunger cut no the alternate ending is just a minute. It is one take. It starts with the clapboard.

It ends with Fincher saying cut. It's one shot. And it is just clearly what happens right after Sean Penn says, I think I saw her get in a cab. Right. Michael Douglas walks out of the building. He looks both ways. She's gone.

She's gone. But, I mean, we're not seeing the reverse shot of this, right? So you just assume from his face that she's gone. And the doorman at the building says, you want me to hail you a cab? And he goes, no, I'm fine. And he walks off. Right. Oof.

It's a slightly more bummer-y ending of, like, will he actually have, whatever, some future happiness? But I do think it's weird that both of those endings hinge on at the end of the day it was about deborah carol hey man who i like 90s queen we love her right yeah is there anything else we have to say in development before we just dig into this movie proper uh let's see you know fincher says the original script is a little sweeter you know it wasn't quite as mean he wanted to make it harder edge he wanted sadistic i mean it's david fincher yeah uh so you know quote of his that goes around all the time that like my main life philosophy is that all people are perverts uh sure yes absolutely um oh well no of course the other thing you have to

mention initially the um brother character was just a friend yes fincher's like no it needs to be like a brother and then jodie foster wants to be in the film playing the deborah kara unger role obviously that's the female lead of the movie fincher doesn't want her for that i think she's too distracting wisely is like if the waitress shows up in the movie and she's played by a two-time os Oscar winner who has been famous for 30 years. It's going to destabilize the film. But she really wants to do it. This film in particular, she just wants to work with Fincher. This film wants to work with Fincher as well, right?

But yes. Panic Room ends up happening because of how badly she still wanted to work with Fincher. But she was really into this script. And I also think her production company has a deal with Polygram at this point. There is a lawsuit eventually over this fact. But it also seems like she probably, maybe Flora Plum, any of the films that she was trying to direct were maybe being set up at Polygram at this point in time. So she's in their stable. She wants to do this film specifically.

He says you can't play the waitress. She says, well, what if it's a sister instead of a brother? They rewrite it to have it be her. Then Fincher's like, maybe you'll be his daughter. Because you are 20 years younger than Michael Douglas. They had played father and daughter in a movie before when she was very young. Right, yes. And it's like, you can be father, daughter, can be the daughter that he neglected comes back into his life.

And Douglas hated that. He's like, I don't want to play her dad. That makes me feel old. Right. That was the thing. So then he was like, she has to be my sister. And then she was like,

well, we're 20 years apart. So basically Foster wanted to be daughter. He wanted to be sister. And it was like, this is incompatible. Right. Uh,

then she's worried he won't, if I play Jodie Foster's dad and Jodie Foster is in her own right, an adult movie star. Right. I, my leading man, romantic lead run is done immediately. Totally. played jodie foster's dad and jodie foster is in her own right an adult movie star right i my leading man romantic lead run is done immediately like the line is getting drawn under me i i understand my yes um she's making contact that goes over schedule that's why she's eventually written out of the movie she then filed a huge lawsuit saying she was supposed to be in it they settled i don't know you know who knows what happened when they switch back to brother the first choice is jeff bridges who he's got the hair

he's got that douglas hair yeah he's got the swoosh but i weirdly buy pen and douglas perfect for this as brothers in a way similarly squirrely yeah yeah and this is and slimy yes yeah yeah and look pen is not my favorite guy he's obviously a very capable actor at times but he can do way too fucking much he can um but i really like pen in the 90s in this kind of mode like carlitos carlitos way rolls uh you know you turn fit you know where it's like oh this guy's a mess this and carlito's way have the same thing where it's like legendary movie star right above the title right and then penn's like hanging out underneath it and they're right so it's not two stars above the title but he's not the and either there's no one else on the poster he's just right underneath it but he just it is really impressive how well within that first

lunch scene he is able to convey an entire history an entire relationship everything about this guy um and i think pen famously can be kind of a pain in the ass sean pen uh-huh um but he got yeah but he got along really well with Fincher. Loves cocaine? Yeah. Uh, what? Partly, I think, because this is a, you know, in terms of screen time, a small role. Yeah.

And it's probably just kind of like, you know, come in and have fun for three scenes, right? Yes. He was probably paid several million dollars to do just three scenes. I mean, who is fourth billed in this film? Who is fourth billed? James Reborn. Yeah, right. Great. Perfect. scenes i mean who is fourth build in this film who is fourth bill james reborn yeah right great perfect it's really truly like those three leads and then a ton of you know small character actor

guys yeah um so yeah now the game you wanted to kick off the game you wanted to play you wanted to run a dice james redhorn or reporn however you say his name let's say redhorn redhorn i bet redhorn i bet he bought a house from the residuals from this movie. Probably. JR. I love JR. He left us, I don't know, it was a while ago. I'm always saying he died recently and he didn't.

About 10 years ago. Yeah. He just was the one who wrote the really nice obituary for himself or whatever. Have you ever read that, Brandon? He did? It's really nice. He wrote his own obituary because I think he had a terminal illness. Yes, he did.

Spread out over a couple years. And they published his obituary and it is beyond pushing. It had a terminal illness. Yes, he did. Spread out over a couple of years and they published his obituary and it is beyond pushing. It's a very sweet, I'm not going to read from it right now, it's too long, but it's very sweet if you want to look it up. I will.

And also, I've always liked that guy. I mean, Deborah Carr Unger, 90s queen, in my opinion. James Robb Horn, kind of a 90s queen. Obviously, he worked well on from the 90s. Sure. But he's just like the number one guy in the 90s to be

like a reedy asshole or like like a da mr president you can't do that or you're in a lot of trouble he's one of those character actors i love he's in fucking carlito's way yeah yeah he's so specific right yeah yeah he's got a specific kind of face and shape. Energy, voice, all of that. He does not transform himself. No. But he could be applied in such radically different ways. He's in damn blank check. He is in blank check. That's right.

You know what I'm saying? He can play high status. He can play low status. He's fourth build in blank check. He can be the butt of the joke. He can be the most intimidating guy you've ever seen. He can be absolute middle of the road functionary. He can be a he can be you know total villain yeah so good so good um and uh and very very crucial i think to this early part of the movie where he's doing the tests where you're

like because you're like i would never do this right you know the second i get there and they're like do all this shit i would be like this is a lot of the second i get there and i see what a little rinky-dink operation it is which is what they're trying to convey i mean i feel like douglas is out but he's so bored yeah like he won't admit it to himself right but he is intrigued at the idea of something right because he's a gun he goes home that motherfucker goes home and watches the news like that's his like nighttime that's like the worst show on television especially i'm sorry no offense to this fucking anchor yeah daniel shore sure but the worst news he's like people are depressed all the time like everything he's reading is this sort of very 90s kind of like a new survey showed that 10 out of 10 people think the world is bad still not guilty isn't it like market

news yeah this guy used to come on like i think when when my dad would pick me up from high school and like the worst possible time like to drive home 5 30 or 5 45 the devil's hour yeah and it's like the the npr he'd be listening to npr and this fucker would come on he would literally be this guy oh yeah this type of guy daniel shore right yeah and and he would he would talk about the markets and he would do talk about you know i always equated him with someone like william bennett who then who then sort of started to like scold people on their fucking behavior and then it turned out that he was a absolute crook and a gambling addict. He's a classic 90s hypocrite. Bennett?

Yeah, Bennett. The golden age of hypocrites, wasn't it? Totally. But it was good old-fashioned hypocrisy. They told us not to be bad in whatever way

and then they would have an affair. It was normal. And then they would feel shame to some extent and go away and now it's like they sent one million racist text messages and their defense was i was joking or whatever yeah now it's that yeah or there is no defense more often the defenses don't even

bother this is good action right like you triggered much yeah anyway he was one of those old-fashioned like he was like reagan's Secretary of Education or whatever. Yeah, he sure was that fucker. Dan Shore. Oh, he was a drug czar. He was a drug czar. That's right. He was the first drug czar.

And then Michael Douglas was the drug czar. Then he was the drug czar. Oh, in Traffic, he's the drug czar. Right, he's the drug czar. It's coming back around. The Bennett. It's coming back around. Daniel Shore, God bless him

His last broadcast on NPR Saturday, July 10th, 2010 He died July 23rd, 2010 At the age of 93 Files one more report and he's like, alright He died at the desk Pretty much, right? It maybe took a week

So the game Which I want to be clear if that sounds like i'm being negative about uh daniel shore about the film you don't want shoreheads to come for i just think in terms of like like they're like the beehive man they will swarm in terms of like 90s uh uh sort sort of vaguely satirical thrillers about sort of hubristic, soulless men, titans of industry, who get trapped in a game of their own design, right?

The trap of their own design. What's the movie you like best? I love the player. I don't hate the game. Ah, very good landing, baby. I don't hate the game. I don't hate the game. very good landing baby i don't hate the game i don't hate the game love i when i saw this film i i was a i was a massive seven head right this is the i was coming off of uh such a seven high you were living 20 years old real time being like this is the fucking guy and this guy's gonna hit home runs every time 100 I saw Seven like three times in the theater.

I felt like a big old grown up. Because it was so dark. Dark movies are the real shit, man. It had all the sins. Few movies had ever attempted that. Some movies would have some sins. Three or four. It had a foot chase in the rain with a gun being waved around.

My favorite thing about Seven is it's always raining. Always raining. Like the most nicest thing. Except at the end. Yeah, it was in the rain with a gun being waved around my favorite thing about seven is it's always raining always like the most nice except at the end yes yeah it is the avengers of sin um yes exactly exactly like sternberg could only get one sin off the ground and even then he lost most of the footage you know still mad at you about that stupid joke uh i love the player i don't i don't it was great i also love the player to be clear yeah um and you and you love the kid you love the player and love the game yes um i love the game even more players real good david hey hey hate it or love it the underdogs on top it's a reference to one of the games he reopened the tab he reopened the wikipedia tab i feel like the game only had a couple years up there right like he was a little flash in the pan well if jj had done

his damn job yeah second dossier jj to me to be i want to actually make this clear oh yes jj worked very hard on these dots he did it very short. He did. And in fact, he said, please don't criticize me on air for getting this to you late. And we won't. We want to go out of our way to thank him for doing a couple dossiers on very short notice as the schedule flipped around.

That had been said. J.J., you fucked up. You should have pro bono given us an additional dossier on American Rapper The Game. So, Nicholas Van Orton is a wealthy investment banker. A.K.A. the game.

A.K.A. the game. Before 50 Cent ever heard of him. Yeah, Nicky the game Van Orton. You should have seen this coming. Yeah, there's a game with your name all over it. He's an investment banker. As he sort of says, I'm going to move money from one place to another.

He himself is not into his job. He basically knows that his job is bullshit. Yeah. That he was born on third base. Born on third base, but then did have the unfortunate luck to watch his dad mysteriously throw himself off their haunted-ass mansion. And luckily someone filmed it. Luckily it was being filmed by the 14 guys who filmed JFK's assassination. haunted ass mansion as a child. Luckily, someone filmed it. Luckily,

it was being filmed by like the 14 guys who filmed JFK's assassination. Mark Mylod was there and he goes, I could develop this style even further.

This also has Tinkley Piano? It does. I mean, it really does. Is it a Howard Shore score? Great Howard Shore score. He does all of

Fincher's early scores and they're so good. Yeah, before he jumps over to Reznor. I did really appreciate the, speaking of the difference between him and Reznor, though, is in the chase sequences in this movie, it's still just a bass and some piano. There's never any, like, yeah, it's not like a drum.

This movie, the score from Howard Shore feels like two different scores being played on top of each other. Yes. There's like the thumping bass thing and then there's the twinkly piano and it often feels like they're discordant with each other. Intentional one,

must assume. Which I like. I mean, I love Howard Shore. Yeah. But it is crazy that the guy who did the weird discordant

Cronenberg and Fincher scores. Yes. And then PJ was like, hey, you want to do like Lord of the Rings? He's like, sure,

you want a symphonic masterpiece with like 20 20 late motifs that will like you know last a generation you know how his career started right uh i don't know he was the original music director on saturday night live oh yes i did he's a lauren michaels guy who then became like weird like thriller score guy then came up with like the defining blockbuster epic score. Right. Yeah. God bless him. Yeah.

Wild career. He's got cute little glasses. Nick Van Orton. It's his 48th birthday. It's the day when his dad killed himself. Uh-huh. And his...

A thing he has never thought about. Right. He's divorced. Put those thoughts in a box. His wife has remarried. He has a child Who he seems to consider A mild acquaintance

Uh huh Right And there's another on the way Not his obviously Lives in a big haunted mansion With his devoted housemaid Ilsa They should have had Jodie Foster Play his daughter over the phone

I was just thinking that That would have worked That would be great Happy 8th birthday That's um Can't you, Carol Baker as Ilsa. Sure.

Legendary, you know, Academy Award nominee. From Babydoll. Babydoll. Yeah. Originated. Tennessee Williams. She originated Babydoll

the play. Yep. Right? Yeah. She's in Giant. She's in, you know, she's in a lot of stuff. Yeah.

Um, he has lunch with his brother, his fuck-up brother, Conrad, who woke up naked on a beach, he says, and, you know, there's a lot of stuff. Yeah. He has lunch with his brother, his fuck-up brother, Conrad, who woke up naked on a beach, he says, and, you know, used to buy meth at this restaurant. Right, you know, he's full of colorful, you know, vibes. Yes, and this movie is so Fincher-controlled

from the beginning that Penn is the first guy you're seeing in the movie who feels a little more off the cuff. Has any life to him whatsoever. Yes. Yes.

Which is great construction because he's coming off, he's coming in high on the game and then we want to be as well. Yes. I want to be on the game. But they haven't talked

in so long that he doesn't know that Douglas and his wife broke up, which seems to have been many years ago at this point she's already remarried pregnant with another man's child they just haven't been talking to each other there's just the sense that he if you don't call him you don't hear from him uh and you see some scenes of him being kind of like a corporate raider you know he's he's scary a touch i do like unless i'm mistaken deborah caronger is the waitress in this first scene

right they just frame her head out yeah she's framed out right which is nice because it's sort of what you're saying of just like he does not even look at these hands to him yeah just um he's got that scary is it peter donat don't oh yeah as his kind of lawyer guy yeah uh love that guy that guy's always kind of scary looking um okay so uh pen's like i bought you this game it'll change your life it's so great and he goes to this fucking office can't explain it but it's it's immersive transformative you know what is it how does he phrase it doesn't he say something like they make you face the thing you don't realize is missing from your life or whatever it is i mean the thing i one of the other things i do think is pretty insightful about this film is it does feel like it is commenting on and this is a thing that is

like such a fucking leno late night punch line talking about all these sort of hypocrite guys uh but i think especially with these like 90s masters of the universe assholes. Sure. Is, like, how often there was some public reckoning of, like, oh, what's their weird fetish? They make someone, like, put them in a diaper and spank them. Yeah, that was very hot in the 90s. It turns out they're all, you know, sexually bizarre. Sure.

you know, sexually bizarre. Sure. But beyond that, that it was like the through line was all these guys who are fucking like absolute conquerors of industry, like just unrepentant assholes, cigar chomping, like pieces of shit.

Right. All have some secret life where they want to be like infantilized or diminished or punished, you know, that it's like these guys who want to be masters of the universe also get off on the I want to be out of control.

I want someone to have power over me. I mean, this movie is pre-Findoming. You're obsessed with Findoming. No fetish makes less sense to me in the world. Are you familiar with Findoming? What's Findoming? No. Findoming is you hire a dominatrix and give them like all of your passwords you're like bank login right and then they're like i'm gonna fucking drain you and part of it is them

texting you during the day and being like i'm gonna fucking spend all your goddamn money where you're just getting off on like it's the non-physical version of snm yeah yeah um yeah griffin's obsessed with this. Obsessed with making sure it never happens to me. It's also essentially what happens to him. That is essentially what I'm saying.

She's standing over him, not to jump ahead too much, but she's standing over him saying, we drained you, Daddy. Right. And then he passes out. But here's this guy who's obsessed with having control

of everything in his life, but is also miserable. Yeah. He's not happy. He probably wants someone to take the control away although he would never articulate that admit it he has the scene where he like says like why do you want to get photos of me uh being spanked while i buttfuck captain kangaroo right like he makes the joke basically saying i don't have a fetish like that there aren't't Polaroids you're going to find of me. And so he needs to be cucked by SRS. Right.

And he's also kind of... CRS. Sorry. He's also kind of like... It wouldn't even matter. Money. Like, he's so in your... Like, he doesn't even care about his public celebrity,

which doesn't exist, really. No. He's like, I'd still be rich. Like, I'd still be powerful, even if you embarrassed me. Anyway, he goes to the CRS. James Bradbourne's

got Chinese food and is doing the whole kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no,

welcome, yeah, sit down, yeah, let's, I'm Jimmy Stewart all of a sudden. I don't know why.

And if Penn's the first guy in the movie to have some life and then Bradbourne is the first guy to be casual, which is so weirdly like unnerving

in the world this film has set up. Where you're like, food, he's dropping it on his shirt by accident. He's distracted by five other things. It's the same as

the receptionist who negs him, essentially, by not immediately catering to him. Yes. So they're both operating from this place of pretending

they don't know who he is. Right. Like, they're putting him off kilter. It's probably what keeps him interested. Right. Like, the lack of secrecy. That's the game. That's the game.

The game's begun. It's negative. They're negative. Right, yeah. They're negative. And Redbourne's peacocking with that Chinese friend. He really is. It's the best in the city.

Best in the city. Best in the city. And so they have him fill out a zillion forms. They have him do a physical. They have him watch the video from the Dharma Initiative in Loss, which is just sort of like, you know, stock footage of weird shit. And then something that just says, like, pornography! Masculinity!

Yes! And he's like, what is this? You know. And after all that, he then gets a phone call the next day or whatever that's like, sorry, declined. No game for you. Yeah. It didn't pass the test.

Right. And then thus the game has begun, obviously. Of course. It's the total recall thing where they tell you exactly what's going to happen right at the moment where the thing is supposed to start. They're like, malfunction. Not working. Right. Right.

Yeah. Love that in total recall. I think that this movie should not have been called The game i think i kind of agree with you i'm gonna start there what would you call it nick's bad day i would say i would call it how nicky got his groove back sad richie yes richie yeah uh don't you know what. Don't bring the wooden clown inside. I think I would call it Escape Room. Tournament of Champions. Tournament of Daddies. Have you seen those movies?

Oh, no, I was talking about actual Escape Rooms. I know, I know. Have you seen the Escape Room films? I am here to tell you I didn't know there was such a thing. I think you'd maybe like them. They're very game-coded in that it's like, oh, an ordinary escape room. Actually, we know everything about what's going on with you.

Yes. Like, fundamentally. And we're going to design escape rooms that provoke, you know. How many are there? Two. There should be a third. There should be a third. They kind of fucked up the release of the second one around the pandemic.

But they feel kind of like canon movies to me in a way I like. Yeah, exactly. They're really fun. Yeah. So, okay, he comes home. And what's outside? Normal. like canon movies to me in a way i like yeah exactly they're really fun yeah um so okay he comes home and what's outside normal a wooden clown posed exactly as his father lying in the sidewalk yes outside rude by the way incredibly rude too soon clown looks too soon you say it's only been 48 years i think it's been less than it's It's been like 30. Harold Ball, 45. 30-ish year. 30, yeah. He was probably like 12.

I don't know. Sure, okay. Who knows? Who can say how old he was? Impossible. Truly impossible. No one tells us. No.

And there's a clown. He brings the clown inside. You bring the clown in, right? You bring the clown in. No. You don't bring a wooden clown? Nine, one, one. Yeah.

Well, bring the clown in and put it in a chair. You put it in a chair. Well, you're not going to leave it on the the ground i'm not someone who really thinks you should call the police in any scenario but wooden clown left in a menacing way outside my apartment i might i might just want a console no look i i operate someone to bounce that off i i operate on the principle of a cab uh-huh all clown bad. Yes. Don't fucking go near them ever under any circumstances. Um,

and he brings it in and then, yeah, just, I think, yeah, the best, most surreal touch

of the whole movie, the TV starts talking to him. What's more fun than that? Yeah. Yeah. The sort of, the newscaster being like, and America continues

its long trudge towards mediocrity. Are you listening to me, asshole? What do you think of the fucking clown? The effect of the glitching. Worked really hard on the way it's good yeah it's so throwbacky yes because it's a broadcast right i mean even if it's cable tv it's not it's not computers you know

no no no this movie is wonderfully analog in general apart from his cell phone you want to know you want to know a touch that made me very nostalgic, weirdly? Go ahead. So when the guy's talking to him, and he's going up to the TV and trying to figure out, like, what's going on. Is this a window? Video drone. Is there a camera here? Right, where's the camera? Right, video drone. Very video droney, sure.

He puts his hand on the screen, and you hear the sound of the static. Oh, yeah. I was like, fuck, I forgot that was a thing. Totally. It was kind of fun to brush the screen. You figure it out as a kid by accident, right? And then it starts to become a thing where you're like, sometimes I want to do it. Yeah. I want to put my cheek up against

it. James Woods it, as you said. My cheek? No, what cheek? My face cheeks. He calls his butt cheeks his face cheeks. He does. He calls his butt his face. It's really weird. I'm a butt face. Yeah, the TV. the most quaint uh moment to me is when because he can't open his briefcase he cannot proceed

right with presenting papers now just be like i'll email these to you he's literally like they're in the fucking brief this is why our doc you sign which one's better this is why i say it's one of the most likable Douglas characters from the beginning because he went there in person. He did go there in person to motherfucker him or something. God bless him. It's true. He's doing it face to face.

Oh, man. I was like, this guy's actually okay. I mean, he did go there in person to tell like some beloved children's book man. Yeah. Yeah. You're not making profits for me. You're fired. He's going to jerk off about it later

yeah yeah does he jerk off no i think he sees his penis and he's like what's that yeah oh right right yeah right that's my that belongs to me his his penis i imagine is like one of the fucking appliances in flintstones it's a living right and it just goes like, again. Which is such a strange thing for a Douglas performance. To have such a Dickless performance. This is one of his least horny films. That is true. Right, because even Deborah Karen Unger, it's like when she takes her shirt off,

he almost seems a little confused and uncomfortable. I think he's a little embarrassed. Yeah, because he's still just, it's the propriety of that moment to him they have a little bit of a spark but then he yeah she's like is there talent he's like yeah yeah he's not that kind of asshole no whereas in most 90s uh douglas movies he'd be fucking armin mueller stall the shirt would be off yeah yeah. Oh, yeah. He'd be fucking Mule of Salt Forest. He'd fuck the clown. That's why I brought the clown in.

Of course. What else are you bringing in? What are you drinking? He fucks the big bouncy castle at the end. Skylar. They're like, let's get him. Oh, he's having sex with him. With the X. He's like, what?

There's a big X. Do you want me to hail a cab, sir? Just so I can fuck it. It's got a tailpipe, right? So the clown, yeah, very cool. It's got a tailpipe, right? So, the clown, yeah, very cool.

There's a key. The first key is sort of introduced here, right? In the mouth. Yeah, the sort of aesthetics. It's like the tongue is the ribbon. I love all this. It's so 90 keys. Keys.

It's so good. Now it would be a fucking app. It's true. Yep. Admit it. It'd be a fucking face ID yeah exactly yeah you have to scan something or whatever it's just like yeah what is the key open you know this idea of like san francisco is this big weird empty playground where it's like who knows what we've tucked away in like

weird basements or lobbies or yeah but also fincher grew up here yeah sure i mean i think um they thought about setting it in other places and fincher was very here yeah sure i mean i think they um they thought about setting it in other places and fincher was very pro san francisco it was like it it cost several more million dollars to do it in san francisco as opposed to new york or chicago or la right and i was really insistent about it and this was the movie where they weren't telling them no on anything i think it's such a cool thing i mean obviously, obviously, Zodiac is another. This is two SF movies. Where's Seven set? Seven is set in a nameless city.

It's set in Rain City. France, San Francisco. Exactly. Right? Seven's set nowhere. That's what I recall, yes. Obviously, Panic Room's a New York movie. Benjamin Button is down in the biggies.

New Orleans. New Orleans. The Button is down in the Big East. Down in the Bayou. New Orleans. New Orleans. And the Saints. No, okay, whatever. Social Network is set down in the Bayou. Down in the Bayou. Harvard.

Yeah. And Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, that was set where? Iowa? Little joke. Yeah. And Gone Girl is set

kind of in Iowa. It's in Nebraska or something, right? Gone Girl's in the Midwest. He's dragged her out to the Midwest. What's the hat they make him wear? Which team is it? I don't know. This is the whole thing we're fucking asking.

Well, he wears a Mets cap because they're from New York. Right. Remember, they met in New York, but it's Missouri. It's Missouri. Kansas City, right? Outside of, I don't know, whatever. You know, anywhere. Okay.

He's made so many good movies. I like his films. Do you want to name more Midwestern states? Yeah, do it. North Dakota. Mm-hmm.

That's one of them. I, I, Wisconsin. Like, I'll say that I don't love this movie, but I'm also watching it

and I'm like, we gotta do the full rewatch, but I'm like, if this is my bottom-ranked fincher, which it might be, that's a pretty fucking exceptional film it is pretty high for sure his wow we're gonna be different that's fun though um wow i almost want to tell you where i have it don't okay um so uh then he has the he meets christine deborah carra hunger What do we think of Deborah Cara Unger? She is a waitress who pours wine all over him, and he's mean about it, and then she's...

She gets fired. She sticks up for herself and gets fired. He feels bad. Feels bad. I... Her audition tape, she sent a sex scene from Crash. Yeah, that was her reel. Really?

That was literally her, like, you know, yeah, just like, what do you think of this and she said which by the way is what self-tape should be self-tape should be what we call reels and you should watch one fucking scene right yeah and be like this is the same way you decide whether i can do it or not i agree with you in principle but then every time i send casting directors deborah karunger sex scene from the game, they don't hire me. I fucked it up. That was a really good joke. Let's just get you say it clean

and I'll insert it later. I agree with you in principle. Good sir. But yet I've got another fact into the record. Every time what? More's the pity, but every time what more's the pity but every time i send a casting director deborah carl hunger's sex scene from crash there you go nailed it 2005

they don't respond well also i oversold it um oh you think You think we put too much mustard on that one? I had a take. I had a take. Now, Deborah Carr Unger, Canadian actress. She's from the beautiful town of Vancouver, out there in British Columbia. I feel like at this point was basically mostly known for Crash.

She is in Highlander 3, The Sorcerer. So maybe Ben remembers her from that. I don't really. Highlander 3 has not Sorcerer. So maybe Ben remembers her from that. I don't really... Highlander 3 has not stuck in there. The Final Dimension? No, no. I was a big Highlander head and I never even saw 3. Ben has pushed very hard to cover the Highlander movies.

We like the film Highlander and we think 2 is kind of bad and funny. Yeah, but I was very excited to see the quickening in the theater. Mm-hmm. Oh. That's two. That's two. That's two.

That's two. But she's one of those actors. Let's do it, though. Yeah, I know you want to do it. Griff, stop playing with your ghost box. My act, though, Tramp. My ghost, Tramp.

Sorry. The thing she said was that she was very relieved that this was basically the first movie she worked on where she got to wear a full costume. She wore clothes the entire movie. Yes. And a full outfit. She's, I just consider her like such a specific presence in terms of years. Yeah.

Like the movie, like I like her, but like if she's in a movie, I'm like, it's the late 90s or the early 2000s, basically. Right, because then it's... She has white noise. She's really good in Stander, a movie that bizarrely doesn't exist, but is hella solid. No, that movie's good. Tom Jane, right? Yeah. He's a bank robber or something.

In South Africa. Right. And she's the female lead in that, and she's really good in that. And that's the last time I remember her really making a mark in anything. But I think for how dark this movie is, Harris Savitis shot it. And he's also in the bathroom. Yes.

He's the guy asking for toilet paper in the bathroom. Harris Savitis, who we will talk about on other episodes as well. The God. The God. Maybe my favorite DP of all time. It looks so good. It looks incredible. This is pretty much his first big movie. He had done one other time. It looks so good. It looks incredible. And this is pretty much his first, like, big movie.

He had done one other feature with, well, Phil Jeannot, who was similar to Fincher, a kind of Wonder King, young, hot shot director everyone thought was notorious. You too. But his movies never connected. No. And Herceviz was, like, the top music video commercial DP. He does this one Phil Jeannot film,

and he's just, like like not fucking worth it. I don't want to deal with features. I don't want to deal with fucking directors for this long. Easier money to just do what I've already been doing. And Fincher had to basically beg him to do this. And a lot of the appeal was that he's like, I really wanted to get caught in the weeds on the plot and the twists and turns and the details

of this movie narratively and not be micromanaging the visuals as much as i usually do because fincher's like i usually come in with a lot of very specific takes on lighting and harris savita's instincts and styles are so aligned with my own that he's like the one dp where i feel comfortable being like harris just do what feels right to you i'm probably gonna like it um i feel like the lighting scheme this movie's warm and kind of dark and soft at the beginning this is what i was gonna say yeah and then go ahead it is so dark and so shadowy for so long it is incredibly helpful to have someone like deborah care hunger who does not look like anyone fucking else very strange even in

silhouettes you're just like unmistakably her do you know dku you don't know her or anything right personally yeah no i was just anytime an actor's on the show i'm like i don't want to talk any weird shit about someone you might actually know i also do feel like you kind of know everybody yeah you know everybody i know everybody except deborah garrow the one i do like her a lot but i don't know her i've never worked with her either uh she's in both silent hill movies um the first silent hill movie is basically one of the 10 best movies ever made I do like her a lot, but I don't know her. I've never worked with her either. She's in both Silent Hill movies. The first Silent Hill movie is basically one of the ten best movies ever made. And the second Silent Hill movie is kind of one of the worst movies ever made.

Much like Highlander. Yeah, kind of that vibe. Silent Hill the quickening. Obviously, she's in Crash. She's in Payback. She's, I believe, Mel Gibson's wife in Payback. My friend Greg Henry is in Payback. Oh, Greg.

We love Greg Henry. I do know Greg Henry. Of course. And Greg Henry is also a guy who's in every movie. Every De Palma film, for sure. Obviously, De Palma favorite.

She's one of the big members of the Sunshine Ensemble, the refined Sunshine. But, like, what's her last, what's her most recent credit as of this moment? Her most recent credit As of this moment Her most recent credit Griffin Is a 2022 horror film called

The Long Night Starring Scout Taylor Compton That was a well good looks like a sort of direct to video Horror film so she is still working I just feel like I would be so excited If I saw her pop up in something today She definitely has only done like A handful of movies in the last 10 years

and none of them are movies I've heard of. Sure. She was in a Nicolas Cage directed video thing called Vengeance, A Love Story. Okay. But I feel like her last big movie, apart from Silent Hill Revelation, which is awful,

is maybe 88 Minutes. She's in that. Oh, the Pacino. I think she's the fourth or fifth lead in that that's the last movie i'm seeing on her imdb where i'm like well that was a wide release like kind of big film she's been doing voice work on a lot of star wars video games she seems to have a recurring character across many of the games over the last 10 years got a great voice scorpio uh sure uh yeah uh the um the tv show no that's the name of her character in the oh in star wars in the star wars games yeah uh good for her it was scorpion was the tv show yes i was on that who do you play

on scorpion you were on scorpion yeah i was in scorpion i played a i played a baseball pitcher you do have a bit of a baseball pitcher look how dare you uh hot is all i mean the rudest thing anyone's ever said yeah i was the x i'm always the x who comes back to cause trouble between the people you want to oh right and everyone's like oh i hate this handsome man entering. Fuck him. He's got a chip on his shoulder or something. Do you know the most extreme example, now in retrospect, of that? What's that? That Brendan has done in his career.

Oh, yeah. And there must be some Tumblr name for what you're talking about, like the wedge or the, you know, whatever. What is it? Meghan Markle's suits. Oh, sure. Oh, you're Meghan's ex on suits?

Yes, Meghan's ex. Got in the way of the ship that people were invested in at that moment, right? That's right. An actual ship. My mom would have been furious at you. Oh, your mom probably hates me.

Huge Suits fan. Yeah, she probably hates me. My mom is like one of Suits' number top 10 all-time fans, I think. She was just bringing up Suits to me and I was like, yeah, I know you like Suits. Like, it's not on anymore.

Deborah Carr Unger, I think she's great in this because yes she is she's very distinctive yes she feels like an actress she does but because she's sort of not that famous at this moment right she she still works as this kind of like you know you you you have to sort of buy that maybe she's the one person who's not in the game yeah she's at the exact right level of like, if Foster's too famous and if someone is too green, you're just going to be like, well, they can't hold their own in this story, right? They can't create tension against Michael Douglas. Right. And she's just very comfortable, confident on screen. Yeah, very confident.

She could help him out. Right. She's helpful. She's kind of annoyed with him. But she's got enough of a heart that if he's in real trouble, she's not going to abandon him exactly. And she's not going into total femme fatale pastiche, but she understands how to sprinkle bits of that in

in the scenes where it's appropriate. I think it's very... There's this whole rigmarole where they encounter a man in the street who's dying. They get in the ambulance with him. They get dropped off at this fake hospital. It turns out to all be fake. They go in a creepy elevator. I mean, this is all great game stuff, to be clear.

Classic game. And the whole time you're thinking, this is the game. And yet Michael Douglas does not go, this is the game. Well, but he's having the moments because he does eventually go like, oh, the key's going to go. The key for the elevator. Yeah, that's true. Whereas if I had the key, it would be like me playing a video game. Where I would just be like, does the key go in here oh, the key's going to go in the elevator. The key for the elevator. Yeah, that's true, yes. Whereas if I had the key, it would be like me playing a video game

where I would just be like, does the key go in here? Does the key go in here? Does the key go in the ambulance? It's constant. Does the key go in the generator? Yeah. Does it go in my mouth?

Eat the key? Yeah, eat the key. Tasty. Fuck the key. I'm Michael Douglas. And then they have the whole thing on the fire escape where they fall in the garbage. Yeah. And it's kind of a little reset for them where they're like, well, escape where they fall in the garbage. Yeah.

And it's kind of a little reset for them where they're like, well, now we're both covered in garbage. Right. Like now we're kind of on equal standing. And that's basically when she tells him, by the way, someone paid me $400 to spill a bunch of wine on you. And he said, what did you say? And she said, well, he said $300 and I said $400. And then I said the handsome man in the linen suit right but so now he knows that she was brought in on this but brought in on this in a way that she

didn't quite understand anything larger outside of that one moment and now he knows he's handsome now he knows he's handsome which he'd never considered no for it he looks in the mirror in the beginning of the movie and he doesn't get that flash in his eyes no no no but you know which in a usual michael douglas movie he'd catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror try to fuck the mirror you'd see the you'd see the ass within a half a second you'd see the tush and he'd be trying to fuck it i don't understand my reflection isn't turning around sorry know your role uh yeah he has that good bit about where he loses one of his shoes And he's like there goes a thousand dollars

And she's like your shoes cost a thousand dollars He's like no that one cost a thousand dollars That's a very good bit Okay What happens now he brings her home Brings her to office Brings her to office She takes the shower

Then they depart Red underwear he sees that she has red underwear. She's got a red bra on. A red bra. Yeah. No underwear. No underwear. Red bra.

And then he goes home. There's a bit of a reset. Also, the Armand Muller stall thing happens before that, right? Where he, yeah, we mentioned that. Yes. And then what happens? No, doesn't he go to a hotel? And isn't that where he wakes up with all the pic—

No, I'm skipping. When does the hotel come in? That is a good point. Oh, just the hotel after the house has been trashed. Right. That night he goes home, that's when he has the conversation asking about his father's suicide. Right. He has a relatively normal night.

Right. He talks to Elsa about his dad, and then he goes back to work and he's being a motherfucker. Mm-hmm. Or whatever. Undeterred. Right. Right. his dad and then he goes back to work and he's being a motherfucker or whatever undeterred right he's only met the ghost of christmas present so far fair right who's and he's the nice one who's like past yeah right yeah he's the fun one um and uh then he you know whatever he gets he gets home and his house has been trashed with crazy neon graffiti and Sean Penn is there and is like, this is like a chain letter.

These people have me over the bear. Right. I passed this on to you to try and get rid of them. Like, this was not me trying to. I'm in so deep. And then he opens Michael Douglas's glove compartment and a million keys fall out. Yes. A sight that would make even the key maker jealous yeah it is a lot

of keys i loved it ben loves to see it lost his fucking mind you big key head big key head nice yeah nice uh my my main takeaway from this the matrix sequel was that was a lot of keys he couldn't get a big line yeah um that's what's really stuck with me but so pen flips out on him and is like you're fucking working with them with their keys right by the way in the world of the movie his brother great actor really good actor that's true i mean he's got performance yeah he's got sean penn skills and skills, and Douglas does not have Douglas skills, really. It feels like you almost want the twist at the end to be like, I'm the CEO of this company.

Yeah. That he was... Yeah, you were our first subject. What if it was that? It was like, congratulations, we'd never tried this before. It totally worked. We're all guinea pigs. Yeah.

And yeah, and then he goes to the hotel room, right? And there's the, you know, compromising, you know, the pictures and the cocaine. Because the you know compromising you know the pictures and the cocaine like to check in they're like you already did check yeah right right and then he looks in his pocket and the key is there because the guy fucking put pocketed him yeah bumped into him in the lobby and then yes this hotel room thank you the hotel room this movie reminded me of dead reckoning a lot of ways uh which i won't talk about uh the the uh the hotel room This movie reminded me of Dead Reckoning Which I won't talk about The hotel room is just set up perfectly

To make him look like a Michael Douglas character It's just coke and Polaroids of sex acts They're like what's his name from Disclosure Just swung through here He's like that's not me I'm a different guy They're like but you look like Michael Douglas If you pick me do I not bleed In fact he does start bleeding then He does He starts touching the coke and then he cuts himself Yes. They're like, but you look like Michael Douglas. If you pick me, do I not bleed?

In fact, he does start bleeding then. He does. He starts touching the coke and then he cuts himself. One of the sort of like most mundane, like it's all spiraling out of control moments is when he flushes the toilet and even it floods. And you're like, I don't want to know what's in there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's good shit.

It is. Yeah. It's not shit. It's blood. Okay. There's no shit flowing out of the toilet And I feel like This is when he finds her again Right

First he gets taxi crashed Yes, by what's his name from Braveheart The man with the world's most interesting facial scars Tommy Flanagan Great guy He's in Sons of Anarchy As is Mark Boone in Sons of Anarchy, right? Yeah. Remember when,

as is Mark Boone Jr. Uh-huh. Sons of Anarchy, they were like, we need the guys with the most raggedy faces possible. Like, everyone has to have a million lines and pockmarks.

Mark Boone Jr. in this film possibly looking the cleanest I have ever seen. Even though he's supposed to be playing, like, a shady P.I. Yes, but in the scale of Mark Boone Jr.,

he basically looks like David Niven here. He's like, I wasted Mark Boone Jr. for me. Well, it's early in his run. Yes. We didn't know quite. He's been working, I guess. When's his first credit? His first credit is 83.

Hey. Playing porn customer. What? In a movie called Variety. Oh, the Betty Gordon movie. Yeahordon movie yeah oh sure how much like i just i'm trying to imagine what the prosthetics budget must have been they had to hire rick baker to transform him believably into the type of man who could buy but then he never took it off and that's where his career began yes what if that's someone's origin story as a hollywood guy it's

like they put all this makeup on me and then then I just left. I just kept it. I never stopped booking. Yeah. You know, I love him so much. He's so good. It's one of your all-time best lines. What? That he looks like he sleeps in a pizza pie?

Yes. A man who looks like he sleeps in a pizza. He, like, opens his calzone and just snugly tucks himself in. I love him in Memento. That's like my favorite Mark Boone Jr. But obviously he's in Batman Begins, if you remember. Isn't he in Tree's Lounge too? Yeah, so good in Tree's Lounge.

One of the most iconic scumbags. Have you ever seen Tree's Lounge? I have and I love Tree's Lounge. That movie is so fucking good. As I recall. It's a boosh. It's on my list. It's on my Ben's choice list. No, he did a couple.

He did Lonesome Jim with Casey Affleck. Yep. He did that movie with Sienna Miller called Interview. Yep. Which is a remake of a Dutch film. I did see that. And he did Animal Factory. Animal Factory.

The prison movie with Willem Dafoe. I still say it's the only boosh movie. And he directed the Leap Dave Williams episode of 30. Did he? Yeah, one of the best 30 minutes boosh. And he directed the Leap Dave Williams episode of 30 Rock. Did he? Yeah, one of the best 30 minutes of Teller's Directed. I only watched like a few episodes of 30 Rock. It's the best one. It's one.

Maybe the best of 30 Rock's kind of later reality is out the window era, especially. I was going to say, is it in the first season? Because I think that's the only episodes of that show I watched. It's later season, but it's. I'm not being curmudgeonly. It's just the truth. It's Leap Dave. You are curmudgeonly, though... I'm not being curmudgeonly. It's just the truth. It's Leap Day. You are curmudgeonly, though.

You're such a curmudgeon. On the episode, it's Leap Day, and everyone keeps talking about the Leap Day traditions, and everything around her is being affected by Leap Day, and Liz Lemon's the only person who's like, what are you talking about? Since when has this existed? And they're like, we do this every four years.

Blue and yellow are the Leap Day colors. Here's the traditional Leap Day meal. It's on television. And they keep on cutting into a cable broadcast of a movie called Leap Dave Williams that is like a parody of the Santa Claus where Jim Carrey plays a normal man named Dave Williams who starts turning into Leap Day Williams. And it's Jim Carrey? It's Jim Carrey as himself. But Buscemi had to direct the episode and direct the fake movie in the episode, which I think is incredibly well done. Buscemi also directed, obviously, some of the most famous Sopranos episodes. He's a good director.

Yeah, he did Pine Barrens, didn't he? But I feel like Tree's Lounge is so good and so deeply felt, but also, you know, not over over the top that you felt like jesus is he gonna be kind of like a huge directing talent like yeah one of the great indie directors and he never quite whatever yeah no i agree with you that's also one of those movies where like the 18th guy is someone like everyone in the bar is some character. Who doesn't want to fucking work at the Boosh? I don't know.

No one. You want to be in my movie? It's called Tree's Lounge. Are you sure that's what you want to call it, Steve? I think the breakout is Kevin Corrigan. Yeah. Love him. Great comeback.

Insane and funny. Love that guy. So, okay, okay. The game, the game, the game the game okay yeah uh taxi crashes uh turns out the magic handle he found is uh you know his way out of that oh sure remember he has to wind down the window yes he got this like special handle magic handle uh i could do with more of that that's a critique i have that feels i want a bunch of those escape roomy you find an object you don't understand what you have to apply it right to yes uh what else happens um

to i'm just i cannot remember the order of everything but he finds his way back to christine because the cab company tells him where she lives yes and that's where she's like don't like keep your voice down they're watching us all the time i am an employee of this and they are stealing your money right like this is not an alternate reality game this is just a scam where they like trick you into giving up your passwords basically and you are gonna like lose all your money and he um if you what do you log into bank of america see that you have zero dollars and that's when you jerk off when you come you don't even need to jerk off you just come you don't touch your penis you're just like okay you didn't touch she did it yeah uh the only time i've ever

seen that depicted is you're the worst has a big fin dom plot okay yeah like that's reveal and i feel like that's when that was that fetish was being first discussed because you're the worst was always eager i think to depict any new sexual fetish get in on the ground floor i just want to i just want to say that i i have kind of a fetish too it's it's a little different though i get off on people just randomly giving me money. Yeah. Oh, and it's really brave of you to admit that. I know, it's disgusting. And you're open about it, though.

Like, if someone wants to do that. I want to say it openly, right? I just want to be, like, out there, you know, and public. You're trying to embrace your kink here. Yeah, exactly. So if anyone wants to do that to you. Right. Especially after you maybe had a really expensive steak meal

Don't remind me about that If anyone would like to compensate me for that fucking bullshit My kink is just trying very hard not to amount debt That is my entire sexual fetish Sure, sure, sure Just let me be even Yes You are scared of money, wisely

Yeah, it's bad Or whatever, scared of money wisely Yeah it's bad Or whatever scared of Credit Overspending yes Yeah many things Terrified of credit Whereas Ben Deposit fetish

Deposit fetish Oh god He loves to see those checks go in Yeah put it in Do you like that you can take a picture of the check And do it on your phone Or do you want the old fashioned like Deposit slip

The old fashioned like to look into the eyes of somebody put in an envelope that has holes in it so the money can breathe don't want to suffocate the money it's the most valuable thing you own it is why is that oh who cares it doesn't matter

um so uh he calls she drives him away and he calls his bank and they're like yeah you had no money sorry bro like he calls his swiss bank right confirms it they stop at a gas station she's like they cut up your car right yeah yeah uh and then he uh goes back to her place yeah well yes yeah yeah yeah i think it's after her cabin. He goes to his cabin. They go to his cabin. He still has a nice cabin. Drugs him. He calls, what's his name?

The lawyer. And he's like, I don't know what you're talking about. Not a cent has been moved. You're fine. Right. And she's like, he's in on it too. He's fucking milking you. Hang up right now and immediately drugs him with tea.

Great just conspiratorial way. You know, like you're trying to move right where it's like if someone says the truth, they could just be lying. If anyone tells you you're not being conned, they are in fact part of the giant con. The one who is conning.

Yeah. And he wakes up in Mexico in a coffin. Yeah. Which is for dead people. Yeah. And has to make his way back to San Francisco.

And handles this all at this point pretty even-handedly. Yeah. He's pretty much just in the flow at this point. He goes to the American

embassy. He's kind of broken at that point. Right. He's kind of like, okay. And the guy sort of immediately can tell

his story, doesn't totally check out. Right. I mean, I think this guy is like you got robbed by gay hustlers, right? Because he's sort of doing a whole... He arches his eyebrow when guy is like you got robbed by gay hustlers right because he's

sort of doing a whole arches his eyebrow right he says i got robbed yeah right because he's got this expensive watch i was staying at a hotel i can't say the name of the hotel yeah a lot of that who wouldn't take the watch and the watch is the inscribed to him by his mother on his birthday which is the day daddy died and which is him surrendering the baggage he's ready for the final chapter this is a metaphor true it's true he's he's finally letting go of this weird kind of creepy watch i wouldn't wear that watch i always think of trauma as the ultimate gold watch i mean that's really what it is yeah like do you want your dead dad's watch she died in front of you show off to folks and it

literally says like you are a man now or whatever right it's like on your 18th birthday like here you are you have the family curse but also it has now look up and watch me die right yeah um he gets back to san francisco and uh they're like your brother's in a loony bin uh your mansion's been sold yeah it's all happened pretty fast it's all bad uh and um was mexico in on the game like the the state of mexico the country government itself yeah probably okay because they have they seem to have limitless how much financial resources mexico yeah but no no they loaned it two weeks okay two weeks they rented it it's got built-in uh production value yeah yeah it does uh how much does the game cost

at the end of the movie sean penn is looking over a dense stack of papers and michael douglas goes what's that he goes it's the bill and he goes let me split it he goes thank god right and then michael douglas takes a look at it and his eyeballs pop out of his head. Steam comes out of his ears. Awooka, awooka, that's a lot. Yes. The film cost $70 million.

Yeah. Should we say that's what the game kind of got to be? It has to be tens of millions. Yes. All those squibs placed, all those places

he could possibly go. Yes. You have to also remember that like all of the possible permutations of his journey you know all of the explosions that have to be laid that don't even ever get like if you re-watch this movie also you see crs everywhere like those initials like lots of businesses yes right different it's in the the van out front of her it's very cute how it's like easter eggy and everyone in the movie is there at the end like you know every single fucking bit actor you see

basically is there at the end and you were there and you were there and you were there um anyway uh he goes to see his ex-wife uh-huh uh he's not he's nice to her he's apologetic i would say the only person in the world he can trust right right yeah um and uh when he's not, he's nice to her. He's apologetic. I would say the only person in the world he can trust. He says, right. Yeah. Um, and, uh, when he's doing that is when he sees, uh, James Redhorn on the TV hawking something else. Yeah.

And he, so he tracks him down at the zoo with the white tiger, uh, and take some hostage with a Chinese food restaurant that he remembers he liked and they have his picture on the wall and now he's got him. Uh, Redhorn's so fucking good uh he is good yeah he really plays the maybe this guy actually is kind of like i did my two weeks of the game ah fuck it's a gig yeah right yeah like i do a lot of stuff man like you know i that was i did part one of your game yeah you're in like part six i'm not proud of my Melrose Place episode either. I've made a lot of mistakes in my career. I'm off the clock.

You can see I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Yes. Look, do you know? It's San Francisco. You got Coppola and the game, okay? Those are the two big gigs, all right? Fucking pill commercials. Everyone does the game.

Everyone does the game. It's our law and order. I played a perp. I played a cop. I played a cop i played a judge yeah i've done a lot of like maybe is that like if you're in sleep no more you can kind of cycle around yeah yeah next week mark boone jr plays the james redhorn care the corporate guy yeah oh sorry best chinese food in the city that actually makes i like that like there's someone in charge of the game who's like okay who we got next this guy he's gonna want to see mark

boone jr first right like we'll save red horn for later right look it's my favorite line in the movie is at the end when deborah deborah carol hunger is talking about the next bit and she goes it's just a walk-on right and you're like oh right you were central to this narrative next time you might be the person who checks him in at the hotel or whatever right you always got a different thing to do yeah so caravan of kooks. The ensemble for the game must be. Just the behind-the-scenes story? The pranks?

Yeah. I would watch that movie. That's a show. Yeah. That is a show. Every week. The game. And ARG happens at someone.

Yeah, it's just fucking the jury duty or whatever. That's the thing. I was listening to the jury duty guy do an interview and he was just like, it has been a, like I spent the following six weeks

after we finished filming that show being convinced that it was still happening. Right. Am I still at the Truman Show, essentially? Right. And I just, like, I watched this movie, and, like, Michael Douglas is very relieved once he finds out what's going on,

and he's, like, a thousand pounds lighter. He's like, thank you for saving me. I would just be fucked up for the rest of my life. It is interesting, also, the truman shows a year later which is sort of a different version of this same concept but we in the truman show which i love uh-huh halfway in kind of switch the other side of it yes you know we're with truman for the first half um but anyway yeah he takes uh red horn hostage takes him like take me to the real headquarters, and there they all are Just eating lunch

Absolutely They're all on the same schedule Yes Everyone takes lunch off Is that like an actor joke? Do you take lunch at different times on set? How does it work? No, you're not on set all the time

Whereas all these people are on set Brendan's joke is It does not make sense for them you break for lunch. You're not on set all the time, whereas all these people are on set all the time. Brendan's joke is it does not make sense for them all to have lunch at the same time. That's what I thought. The way you would in a shoot where everyone stops down because you're like, someone's got to be fucking minding after Douglas. Well, that's true, but I guess...

Somebody's got to be gaming him. It's all... He's been led here. He thinks he's doing it himself, obviously. Because there's the earlier moment where Donat is like... They the private investigator they hired jack cahoe uh right and he's like this company doesn't exist the floor is empty that's a cop yes it was a cop oh he's a cop okay um right brun jr's the private investigator uh anyway and then yes the final scene which we already talked about where cara hunger at least plays like oh god you got a real gun rather than the fake gun right

this is real this is the first moment where it's not been like and when he shoots pen he's actually driven to be like okay like whatever whatever meager life i had like which has already been unwound is now completely gone let me throw myself from this falls off the side of a building falls through three layers of glass and windows. Breakaway glass. Lands on a giant airbag, and then they say like, hey, be careful, it's breakaway glass,

but it can still cut you. And it's Spike Jonze. Spike Jonze is there. Yeah. You know how What Women Want is like Mel Gibson has to get electrocuted to understand that women are people? Uh-huh.

This is like Michael Douglas had to, you know, have his entire psyche disassembled and reassembled and then be driven to not just suicide, but recreating his father's traumatic suicide. To understand that anyone else has. Maybe I do have friends in the world. Right, exactly. exactly yeah but yeah but it also has to come by by you know by way of confirming all of like what you said earlier david about the fact that everyone is a bit player in his yes the movie of his life right it is syndrome right yeah right that's like a real thing right yes yes people start to think like everything is just yeah oh there is a there's a there's a word for there's like a real thing, right? Yes, yes. People start to think like everything is just, yeah, true evolution. Oh, there's a word for it.

There's like a psychological, it's not in the DSM. But it's adjacent at this point. It's a concept of first person something, right? Isn't that what the- Well, like main character syndrome? Main character syndrome. That's just what every millennial is like, Ben. Redhorn so specifically nails rap party energy. mean fincher said like the dancing the whole

thing is about this movie being built around this guy and obviously in this last chunk between seeing everyone in their lunch break him going through like a stunt routine and then it truly just being a rap party but not just the dancing and that feeling of being like i've watched this guy be a professional right and play like a stuffed shirt on set. Right, and here he is now just, you know, being a silly guy. There's that bit where he's like too aggressive in his chumminess

where he's like, I'm just so glad you didn't shoot me. We had to prep for that possibility. Right, I was supposed to throw you off, baby. That's what it was. If you didn't shoot him, I was going to have to throw you off the building. Right, right, right.

Yeah. Just too much. Really good. Open right. Yeah. Just too much. Really good. Open bar. Really got to this guy. And then, yeah, there's that one moment where he's like, okay, maybe I'll go on a date with you. And I think there's supposed to be sort of the winky joke of like, is the game over? You don't know anything about me.

And he goes, you can tell me. You can tell me, Scott. Scott. Scott. He watches this movie every every year that's the game i love you scott the game okay we did it you love it wow you did it i think it fucking rules it's one of my favorite fincher movies i love my criterion beautiful obviously well you know worked on transfer. This is a movie that was, like, not in print for a very long time.

And it was a... Because of Polygram, I think. And it was a late Criterion Laserdisc. So, like, all the special features on the Blu-ray, which weren't released, wasn't released until 2012,

were things that were shot during production explicitly for Criterion, which is kind of wild and then it got stuck in that dead zone gulf for a long time um yeah yeah uh they considered shooting it in continuity at one point it was a long shoot 100 days most of it at night yeah tough shoot uh they shot the airbag scene three weeks in he really wanted to just not do that early apparently yeah uh which makes sense

you know um the stuff i really liked that jj pulled up was the the fincher douglas relationship sure i can give you some of that yeah where he was just saying that like he was very impressed with seven but he was also like okay so this guy's like a visual trickster right he's like all about the style he's not going to be concerned with the character and my concern was the razzle dazzle would obscure everything else right right and i think douglas is such a he says sometimes you have to remind a young man about that okay michael such a producer and such a developer of his own material even though he was not producer on this movie credited as such no i think so but i think he basically is always going to wear that hat even if not in title on any set he's on

especially when he's number one on the call sheet um but he was like no fincher was like one of the better actor directors i had worked with and was there even at that early point in his career and fincher uh would say to him because like douglas would come in and be like well i'm just worried about if the audience at this point is this and that and tracking this and he was like i know you're good at all of this and you have the experience doing all this i want you to just be selfish and be an actor think about how you would play this right i don't want you to have to get caught up on the logic of the story that we're telling you at large because i feel like a lot of directors do that where they're like take the producer cap off be the selfish actor make me

deliver what's around it to make it make sense you don't have to help me to tell my story right and so i think a lot of directors make actors help them douglas says two only two other directors he's worked with have such strong concepts as david and that is miloš forman who directed once upon you know one fluke once upon a cuckoo upon a once upon a cuckoo. Once Upon a Cuckoo. Once Upon a Cuckoo. Upon a Once Upon a Cuckoo. And Paul Verhoeven. Yes. Yes. The king.

Sick on mode. Yeah. But yeah, I think Fincher and Douglas and Penn, who I think are all strong personalities, got along fine. And yeah. Deborah Cara Unger. Fincher says,

I wanted there to be the risk that she would walk out of the movie and you'd never see her again. Yeah. Wanted her to be the extra who steps into the wrong place at the wrong time and fucks something up

for the movie star. Like, she's always trying to leave the movie. Like, that is kind of her character. She's like, I gotta go. But she doesn't because she's part of the game. She's part of the game.

Yeah, yeah. And they shot it in San Francisco. I told you all that. Harris Savitas. Yeah, the thing about like, it's San Francisco. I told you all that. Harris Savitas. Yeah, the thing about like it's very warm and dark at first and then the fluorescents start coming in when he's in like the... Like it starts to get harsher and nastier as it progresses. It's so cool.

Do you have any additional thoughts, Brendan? Is there anything else you've had loaded up in the game chamber? No, I would have spit that fire if I had it at the ready. Where's your puppy? He's behind you. He's in the chair. He's in the chair. He's sleeping.

Yeah. Oh, he's looking at me now. Also, he ain't a puppy. He's a big boy. He's a puppy forever. He's little, but he's a big boy. He's a big boy. He's approximately seven years old.

As we discussed, this movie did okay, but it was just so expensive. It was expensive. It did okay. And, you know, it does have also,

it's Polygram's first ever distributor, distribution. So they have, you know, some expectations. It made $109 million

worldwide. Right. It's 48 domestic. It made $109 million worldwide. $48 million domestic. Yes. That's a lot less than $7 million. Which made like $250 million worldwide. Yeah, $7 million made $327 million worldwide. Insane. Big hit.

And cost? Like half as much, like $35 million. Right. Damn. So that's the math they're working on. The first budget they gave him Was $1 per sin Yes

$7 budget Not enough He got that up Not enough Right And Polygram I think Basically considered it A modest success

They put it out September Mid-September Which is a pretty quiet time I think they were trying To kind of avoid The busy times Sure To see if they could sneak one in. This is like a sad, burnished

wood movie. It feels like it fits in September. Definitely. And it got, like, good reviews, but not raves, and it was nominated for, obviously, zero Oscars. Yes. Which is largely how it goes with Fincher until

Ben-Burr Button He's basically just not taken seriously No he was like shut out until Button The film opened September 12th 1997 Griffin Number one 14 million dollars Not bad Everything else in this

There's two bombs below it Okay The number two it's been out for four weeks you know i call it an august movie yeah i call it a bomb it did make 48 million dollars in 97 total or at this point it had made 48 total it's not the avengers is it no it's a saint with val Kilmer? Great, great guess. Because that is kind of the vibe of like, this star is on the downturn. But no, it's an action drama.

Is it Stallone? No, it has a female lead. That's right, folks. Women can lead movies too. Action? Action. Women can lead action movies. But this movie came in with a lot of people being like, well, I don't know if I want to see a movie

about a woman doing this. G.I. Jane? G.I. Jane. G.I. Jane. Ridley Scott's G.I. Jane. I get, you know, certainly, Demi Moore's

on the downturn at this point. Also for Ridley Scott, like a real low because his next movie is Gladiator. Right. Right.

Like it's in his kind of mid-90s where it's like 1492, White Squall, G.I. Jane. Like, three movies that don't really map. No, you're right. I mean, the talk around that movie at the time was weirdly fiery.

And thank God everyone's chilled out about it. And you can say anything you want about G.I. Jane on any stage. Chris Rock never forgot about this movie. Will respond normally. Lodged itself in his brain. She's bald. I mean, that is why the Chris Rock joke was so bad. I was like, G.I. Jane? G.I. Jane. Is this the reference? Yeah. She's bald. I mean, that is why that Chris Rock was so bad. I was like,

G.I. Jane is the reference? It's 2022. Whatever. That's number two. Number three, Griffin, an action film

from one of our, you know, primo action stars of the 90s. I feel like you're saying this facetiously. Yeah. He's,

you know, he's an action star of the 80s and 90s. But he's not a Schwarzenegger. Is he a Seagal? It is Seagal. He's Steven Seagal. Is it the...

No, it's not Under Siege. It's... It's our deadly ground. Not Undeadly Ground, which is... That's the one where he's like, the earth is important. Don't take the oil.

You have to protect the forest. Directed. He directed that one. This one he did not direct. So it's after On Deadly Ground. Correct. Yeah. But I believe this also has environmental themes.

It's called Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires. It's before he slipped into his Vladimir Putin is a great thought leader phase. Well, in between that he has his I only work with rappers Phase This is sort of the beginning of that It's a three word title Three words

It's gotta be three It's called go fuck yourself It's called Fire Down Below Sure Kentucky mining drama But also he's like throwing an axe or whatever Who else is in it? Chris Christopherson

Hell yeah Marge Helgenberger Hell yeah Harry Dean Stanton Hell yeah Stephen Lang This is good ass catch Hell yeah

I'm seeing here This movie's a masterpiece Yeah I think this movie's Seen as fairly bad Okay Famous Stephen Seagal Quote about working

With Marge Helgenberger Oh I don't think She's a physical spectacular Drop dead gorgeous woman She is a spectacular actress like the fuck is the matter uh nominated for four razzies okay um but it lost to the postman which was really owning the yeah yeah all right number four at the box office this is a good box office game action comedy okay oh a young star an up-and-coming comedy star maybe his first is money talks fuck you're so fast the fuck who what's money talks it's brett ratner's first film chris tucker's first starring chris vehicle um in which uh charlie sheen correct yes isn't it

yeah heather locklear i just knew Rush Hour was September 98, and that Rush Hour was like an immediate, like, we gotta keep the ball rolling. You're like Sherlock being like, the man's belt is blue, and you're like, what are you talking about? He's like, well, clearly, the fibers, you know. Rush Hour had one of the biggest box office runs

of a September release when it came out a year later, and it was... You've never even heard of Money Talks. I remember... No, I mean, I vaguely remember it now that you mention it, but I never would have pulled it out. a year later and it was you seen you ever even heard of money talks together i remember no i mean i vaguely remember it now that you mentioned it but i never would have pulled it out tucker sheen locklear correct okay have you seen money talks i mean you're a tucker guy probably i haven't i mean he looks like a real rascal on his post and i love an odd couple like yeah if this is

like sort of a midnight run s type story type story. I think so. Yeah. It was more like Loose Cannons. Tucker's a hustler. Yes. Good call. Loose Cannons is the Hackman Ackroyd. Hackman Ackroyd. Hack-a-ride.

I love that poster where it's Hackman's holding a gun and then next to him is Dan Ackroyd and he's like holding a gun like it's like a dainty thing. Oh, yeah. They're back to back. He's stressed out by it. I don't want to hold this thing. I won as a whatever I, however old I was at that time, 13, 14 years old.

I won a call-in to attend two free tickets for the opening night of that. Not an opening night. No, just a preview. Just like the preview. Sure. And did you go? Oh, I went and I had the poster that was given to me hanging in my bedroom for years.

I'll call up the poster for you. Please do. Back to back. They're standing back to back. They are standing back to back. He's like a meat freak. Is that the bit? Yeah.

Yeah. And I barely remember anything about the movie. But the poster. But the poster had a place in my heart and bedroom. We talked about this on the Crime Wave episode. Do you movie but the poster but the poster yeah had a place in my heart i think and bedroom we talked about this on the crime wave episode do you still have the poster up yeah i still have it up somewhere yeah yeah it's it's above your marital bed now wait we talked about this already no no no no no it's a bob clark film director of portland right what i'm saying i think you're a christmas story and baby geniuses what i'm saying, I think we... A Christmas story. And Baby Geniuses. What I'm saying, I think we already

talked about on mic in the Crime Wave episode. And Super Geniuses, Baby Geniuses. I don't know. It goes to that thing. Your point about Hackman being... And Black Christmas, which is actually a masterpiece. Your point about Hackman being... Hackman was never shot on digital.

Yes. Hackman only shot on film. They tried to shoot Mooseport on digital. Yeah. They were trying to be at the cutting edge. But he, while still being alive, thank God, knock on wood, that will still be the case when this episode comes out. Oh, God. Yes. Yes.

It will be. No. Hackman's strong. Every single piece of acting he ever did in a movie was shot on celluloid. Absolutely. That's kind of rare. Who else can you say that for? Yeah, but I'm seeing here Hackman's coming back for, you know,

Green Lantern 2. Right. He's playing Kilowog. He's playing fucking Tom Array. It's just that will happen one day. It won't happen. I mean, I do think Gene Hackman is genuinely retired, and God bless him. Writing cowboy novels.

He's having a blast. But there is just that weird thing with the comic book movies where they're like we've hired you know fucking orson wells he's back from the dead and he's gonna play you know lieutenant jerk yes for one scene yes captain america eight yeah uh do you see that quote from harrison ford let's shoot this piece of shit. Wait, what? Anthony Mackie was like, it's so refreshing working with him. He's so down to earth on Captain America 4. He'll just be kind of like, let's shoot this piece of shit.

And we're like, yeah, let's shoot this shit. And I'm like, well, you dropped a word. You dropped a big... Kind of a crucial word. Harrison Ford is playing the Red Hulk. You don't know that, of course? No. What's the Red Hulk? You don't know that of course No What's the Red Hulk?

I don't know If the Hulk was Red Yeah Unlike She-Hulk who we like We like She-Hulk We love her What if the Hulk was she? Yes

What if the Hulk was she? And sometimes she is Yes He's not playing the Red Hulk right? He is Is he? Oh he's playing Thunderbolt Ross Yeah he's got to be the Red Hulk

He turns into the Red Hulk? He turns into the Red Hulk Is the Red Hulk built of bricks? No That would be better If he was I think that would'd be cool if he was a brick i have a vague memory of a comic book with like well that's the thing the thing is sort of made a rock i'm thinking of the thing it's great it's clobbering time he's a great guy no there was this moment where some nerd reporter asked him like and i have to ask are you playing the red hulk and harrison ford was like what is a red hulk what the fuck and you're like he's either just doing the marvel thing of you know not letting anything out or

as plausible he doesn't know what the hell they're talking can i make my fucking guess on the record yes the one they're shooting right now is captain america thunderbolts he's also signed up for and they pushed it back because of the rider strike i'm guessing that's the one where he turns into the red hulk he doesn't know yet yes yeah yes and if they've explained it to him it hasn't sunk in because it's not in the script that he's written yeah they explained it to him he was like i don't but the money goes into this thing right yes harrison ford he also has a deposit fetish yes oh he sure does god bless him yes um okay number five at the box office griffin and this is interesting Oh, he sure does. Big time. God bless him. Yes. Okay. Put the money in the bank account.

Number five at the box office, Griffin, and this is interesting, is a film that's been out for five weeks, slowly expanding. Okay. It's in 387 theaters in its fifth week. It's made $6 million. Okay. It will be nominated for Best Picture. Wow.

And it's on its way to about $50 million. Wow. Ed Wood. Not Ed Wood. That movie was a flop. Yeah. God bless it. But it50 million. Wow. Ed Wood. Not Ed Wood. That movie was a flop. Yeah. God bless it. But it got nominated.

Nope. It got Oscar nominations. One supporting actor and makeup, but not Best Picture. Oh, this is Best Picture. This film was nominated for Best Picture. 1997. Is it a Miramax? No.

I'm trying to think of the slow roll. It actually is credited to Fox Searchlight. I could have sworn this was a miramax it's not full monty it's the full it's the full monty what if men were nude that's a word of mouth hit if i ever saw one a show that now has a 25 years later like a sequel hulu series that no one is talking about fm2 full monty it is just called the Full Monty and they don't get naked in it. It's not about that at all. It's just here are what these guys are doing 25 years later and it's still called the Full Monty.

What are they doing? They got everyone back except for the one guy they fired. The guy with the big dick. That's the guy with the big dick. What? He was naked in his trailer too much. Who are we talking about? In the Full Monty, there's the one guy who's got the big dick and i forgot the actor's name hugo spear he got fired

for inappropriate behavior on set and his defenses i just like to be naked in my trailer and too many times pas walked in right without knocking oh that old classic situation classic for a second when you were talking about The Full Monty, because I remember very little about The Full Monty, except Robert Carlyle was in it, I had a little moment in my head where it got cross-contaminated with Waking Ned Devine. Well, which was going for a Full Monty vibe

with the U.S. box office. That's the lottery ticket movie. I think that's a good movie. I haven't seen it since 1998, but I remember having a good office. That's the lottery ticket movie. I think that's a good movie. I haven't seen it since 1998, but I remember having a good time. That whole, that's a Patreon series. The Full Monty and then the other charming British indie comedy.

It's Full Monty. The one where Brenda Blethen grows weed. Saving Grace, which is written by Craig Ferguson. There's a few of them. Sheer Madness with Bill Nighy. Does Tumbleweeds count? Maybe that's just written by Craig Ferguson. Yes. Yep. There's a few of them. Sheer Madness with Bill Nye. Does Tumbleweeds count? Maybe that's just like an actual genre. Can you imagine if the British were chill?

I know Waking Night Divine is Irish. Yeah, it's feather-light comedy. Could we do Purely Belter? Like, could we do the ones that didn't even come out in America? Purely Belter. Purely Belter. Look, I lived in Britain, man. I had to suffer through six months of Purely Belter ads. Maybe we Look I lived in Britain man I had to suffer Through six ads Six months of

Purely Belter ads Maybe we just do The Peter Cantoneo series One of the most Just astonishingly Disastrous careers For someone who directed A Best Picture nominee

And was nominated For Best Director Right yeah But what was He did the one Lucky Break Right And he did The Rocker

With Rainn Wilson Sure did Yeah Military Wives Oof Yep Military Wives Was nominated for Best Director For what and he did the rocker with rain wilson sure did yeah military wives yep if they're military wives was nominated for best director for what the full monty oh right sure of course yes yeah um

so i've told this story before i'm sure it's not even a story it's an anecdote but that year the oscar party that my parents brought me to i i picked full monty down the ballot you told this and everyone was like titanic's winning and i'm like yeah but if it doesn't i'm the only one who fucking gets it right sure you were trying to zag right and they were like if it doesn't it's not going to the full monty it's going to la confidential and i was like i'm telling you a little rapid look you're probably right yeah full monty could have had a word of mouth uh you know bounce there sure overa whatever you've also got air force one uh-huh masterpiece uh yeah it is yeah i have a friend in there which one spencer garrett do i know i know that name get off my plane get in my bank account oh yeah for my plane oh i think he's he's one of the guys in the in the um

you know there's the the glenn close yeah you know he's in that sitting at the table being like what do we do yeah he's one of those guys um well because like everyone is an air force one yeah macy one of the most macy is so good in it yeah uh hoodlum hoodlum they don't make movies like that anymore speaking of tim roth no it's no bill duke yeah um uh yeah tim tim roth and It's Bill Duke Yeah Tim Roth and Fishburne Obviously Fishburne is Bumpy Johnson Cool movie in my opinion Very underrated

Bill Duke is the shit The great Bill Duke The Mel Gibson film Conspiracy Theory This is just a great box office game Of like cable movies Like the fall, man. Yes. Conspiracy theory.

Conspiracy theory in the game. You know, there's a lot. Same similar vibes. The whole world. X-Files-y kind of like it's all lies. Yeah. Yeah. Who did Donner?

Donner. It's Donner. And that was one of those movies where it's just like if Mel and Julia Roberts want to work together, they can pick any fucking script they want. Yeah. We don't care what it is. Patrick Stewart's the villain in that one yes uh excess baggage alicia silverstone's big nishio del toro with uh

which i would always get that confused with life less ordinary wait didn't like christopher mccorry direct that shit no that's way of Gun. So all three of these movies were on the same spectrum of, like, stars who just had a breakout, director or writer. Give them anything. Crime comedy. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah,

all three kind of imploded. Who did that one? Marco Brambilla. Okay. Remember him? No. But that was part of Alicia Silverstone's big,

like, overall deal. Post-Clueless, she developed that, produced it. Oh wait, maybe it wasn't him. Because he's the director of my favorite movie, Demolition Man. Oh, sure. No, I'm just directed by him. You were right. Trust yourself. I was right. And then number 10 in the box office

is George of the Jungle. A classic! Which must have been out for a couple months, right? It's been out for two months. Yeah, it made a shit ton of money. It made a a hundred million dollars yeah come on what's better than George of the Jungle

a film starring two Academy Award nominees one winner now yeah because THC is in it THC is a villain Leslie Mann should have been Oscar nominated for Knocked Up she's great have you seen George of the Jungle

never seen George of the jungle never seen george of the jungle got some good bits you're just a doorman doorman doorman doorman that would have been her oscar clip yeah and she's amazing in that movie i agree she's so good at the movie she's been fucking dining out on it for 20 years now basically i would have nominated her for george of the jungle as well sure i don't remember her in it i mean she's the ape's name is ape i don't know that's the kind of thing she probably says brandon i'm sorry we're completely just wasting your time at this point oh yeah speaking of wasting time uh earlier in the episode i interrupted rudely yeah right let's take a screenshot oh yeah sure so i was on a website let me open this up okay

okay because i was looking up, hey, maybe look up some movie locations. What the hell is this? Okay. That were, you know, different setups in San Francisco.

I was served a pop-up ad for this. This is the pop-up ad. For like, sort of, one of those like news sites

that's written by AI or whatever. Right. One of the most cursed images. No, no. He's, it says Michael Douglas makes history with divorce cinema,

but he's not divorced, right? Like he and CZJ figured it out? They figured it out. And he's looking... How would you describe his... A little gamey. I always mispronounce this word, but he's looking sepulchral.

Yes, I also don't know how to pronounce that. Sepulchral. Sepulchral. I don't know. Sepulchral. Yes, I also don't know how to pronounce that. Sepukorol. Sepukorol. I don't know. Sepukorol. I have to say, it is impressive that Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones worked things out after he basically accused her vagina of giving him cancer. I mean, it's...

Well... Do you know the Gottfried bit about that? It's so fucking... Where he's like, I would eat her ass for AIDS. He's like, it's a small price to pay. He does like 10 minutes on it. It's very funny. He's just admitted, because at the time, I was like, I would eat her ass for AIDS. He's like, it's a small price to pay. He does like 10 minutes on it. It's very funny. He's just admitted because at the time,

I was like, I don't have throat cancer. I got sick because I performed too much cunnilingus. Please hold your applause, right? It was basically his statement. And then in the years since, he said, there's just still such a stigma around cancer that they wouldn't insure me unless I basically counteracted

the announcement that i was sick with some show of virility uh sure that's bullshit i think i mean her vagina did not cause him cancer i agree it was not her vagina he has admitted that. Yes. It was the accumulation of all of the... Right. I think he also smoked a lot of cigarettes, you know. I think he did a lot of stuff. And he attributed his cancer to stress, alcohol abuse, years of heavy smoking, and yes, possibly HPV transmitted by cunnilingus, you know. But it's a rich gumbo.

He left out steak. Yeah. You're right. You know? The air, you know, just generally. You said alcohol, right? He did say alcohol. Yeah, yeah.

Because he was a big drinker, I think. He was a big everything. He was a man of vices. Big appetite, big movie star. Big hair. Yeah. When you put the mouse over the image, it gets brighter.

It makes him look worse. Ben can tweet this image out if he so chooses. You want to open that box, but not on this episode. Correct. Let's try and remember if we had anything else to do.

What's in the box? What's in the box? So you're a big Seven boy. You wanted to do Seven. I'm sorry you're not doing Seven. I love Seven, and I was actually looking forward to a revisit.

I still will. I haven't watched i haven't revisited it in gosh over 10 years it's one of those movies that i really like but it is i'm no not usually in the mood it's unrelentingly bleak yeah you're not always gonna be like i want to do 20 minutes of seven no it's like not a remote drop movie no where you're just like if it's on i can't help but get sucked into it. Sometimes you're like, I can't do this right now. I feel that way about most Hensher movies.

Yes. That they are. Yes. Even though they are mostly very dark. I agree with you. But Seven is kind of the one where I'm like, well, I know where this is going. Yeah. And I think good.

Yeah, I know. And the road there ain't good. And the road there ain't good. What's in the box. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

This one is the one, I can watch this anytime. I've seen the game so many times yeah this is my second time seeing it same yeah David's wearing sunglasses now

okay uh Brendan thank you so much for being here thank you for being my friend thank you for having me thank you

thank you for hugging me I always love hugging you you did was that okay Ben you're getting hugged on the way out. Okay, fair warning. I didn't shower.

What? Oops. You're still getting hugged. That's how much I care. Okay. Happy birthday to Earl. Yes, thank you. He's over there.

He's looking. Good boy. I don't even know who maintains the blank check Wikia anymore, but I insist that Earl be given his own guest page now yes dog guest are you cool with us posting dog are we allowed to post dog

can we get a picture of Earl sitting next to but not in the wado chair for sure you can post as many pictures of Earl as you want he demands to be out there alright well Griff is taking the photo okay little lotto you can post as many pictures of earl as you want he demands to be out there all right well um griff is taking the photo okay it's good radio this is great it would be great for him david say something david um what a delight we've to do this i sprained my ankle and it hurts okay

brendan anything you want to plug oh man yeah i want to plug i have a new record yes that is finished yes that is good yes that is not coming out until next spring probably okay but that's the thing okay but this episode's dropping on september 24th oh yeah so at least it's closer. By that point, you know what I may have done? Dropped the first single. There you go. Dropped it. You should drop it today. Very good, I will. September what? 24th. Great day for a single.

You are my father's favorite musician. And I love to hear it. He's gone to several of your concerts alone. And I love to see it. It is so funny how your dad's fandom of you extends out more to the people you've worked with. Bigger fan of Zach and Brendan than he is. Exactly. Zach Cherry and Brendan Hines, like two of his favorite guys.

Two of his favorite guys. Right. Loves Brendan, but you sent me very kindly a Dropbox link to extend to my father of the new album, which he will never be able to open in a million years. I've tried a couple different angles, but I've listened to it and it's phenomenal. Thank you. I can't wait for people to hear it. I can't wait for people to hear it.

I can't wait for people to hear it either. That's why I'm going to take so long to release it. Gotta make it right. Gotta do it. That song is not on the record. Lock and Key, that was recent, right?

You were on Lock and Key? I was. You don't want to plug it if you don't have to. It's done, baby. It's done. I know. My thing is,

you got to plug these things before the streaming services memory hold them. That's true. Plug them while you got them. I things before the streaming services memory hold them. That's true. Plug them while you got them. I mean, we're not on good terms with Netflix. Let's not plug anything that they have. All right, fine.

That's a good point. Yeah. Torrent, lock and tee. Amazon. If you want to watch it. Amazon we're on great terms with. I feel like that. Should I say that?

I think that we're like a year away from the rights reverting back on the tech. Really? Oh, interesting. Yeah. Right. I might be wrong about that, but I feel like that was like five years from when the show ended. The rights meaning could make a new show? That and both also the show possibly existing someplace else.

Oh, that's interesting. I think just things could happen. Well, that's very good to know. It's interesting. Doesn't quell my anger. I want the tick on Crackle. It has always been my wildest dream. Always with me.

Yes. No, same. Hurts. Thank you for being here. I want to end on the note, my anger is always with me. It hurts. Good. Yeah.

Thank you, Brandon. I love you guys. Thank you. Love you. We love you too It's been nice that you've been in New York a lot this summer I've gotten to hang out a lot Yeah it has been nice to see you

New York Complicated feelings Get the fuck out of here Greatest city in the world My nervous system is under constant assault And I pretend that I don't notice it And it's the best thing that ever happened to me You also like fucked up your arm and had three root canals

You've had like a series of health hijinks Technically it was one root canal done three times Oh you mean like they were just like We just didn't get in there enough Kept finding roots Practice makes perfect Yeah Third time's the charm

Hopefully Yeah And we'll have you on again soon i would love that yeah um thank you all for listening please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you to marie bardi for our social media and helping to produce the show thank you to joe bowen pat realms for our artwork jj birch for our research especially once again thanking you for doing pretty quick turnaround on these first couple of

things for dossiers. But also, you fucked up by not doing the game dossier on the side. You're fired. Fuck, I can't open this briefcase. All right,

well, my lawyers will be in touch. Yo, you're lucky, JJ, that he doesn't have the key. Thank you to Lay Montgomery

for our theme song. Thank you to Adrian McKee and lay montgomery for our theme song thank you to agent mckeon alex baron for uh editing blank check pod.com links real nerdy shit patreon blank check special features do in we're on to brosnan's our solutions uh we're on oh my goodness oceans oceans 13 just no no no br Brosnan Bonds started Just the other day Well that's what we're doing then And you can tune in next week for

Fight Club Which unfortunately is going to be a very short episode Because we can't talk about it Right, exactly, we'll just talk about other stuff Yep And as always Just definitively for the record want to say Catherine Zeta-Jones' vagina does not cause cancer. Okay. Okay. I just wanted to say it.

Dick and his way through shitsville.