Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Man Who Wasn't There with Jordan Hoffman

Episode Date: September 7, 2025

This one’s a real enigma - is The Man Who Wasn’t There a film about the alienation of a man who is deeply closeted and searching for connection in a tightly wound post-war world? Is it about a wife guy who doesn’t know how to express his feelings? Is it somehow about how Beethoven was not only deaf but suffered from horrific diarrhea at the end of his life? No? Well, that’s Jordan Hoffman’s theory! Join us for a very silly episode where we go long on Billy Bob, coin a new term for a Shalhoub appearance, and decide that all Austin-based podcasters are just Salacious B. Crumb. Read Jordan’s Article about the collapse of “The Messenger” Subscribe to Jordan’s SubStack THE Billy Bob Interview Watch the ITYSL Sketch with the great Biff Wiff Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your  pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blank Jack with Griffin and David Clavin Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the shy with blank check He told them to look not at the podcast But at the meaning of the podcast And then he said the podcast had no meaning

Pretty good speech I last night I was like I almost have a billy bob and I lost it today well it's uh but he's he's he's in a specific he's in a very specific moat yeah yeah he wasn't usually doing this usually he'd be talking about french fried pertators right or as Andy Sandberg likes to do his impression talk about Kangol caps yeah he doesn't he doesn't have much of a southern accent in no but there's the slightest there's the little I was like I was getting, I was trying to pick up on which syllables he'll like, but I

couldn't, I don't know. He just kind of throws it all away. I mean, look, this is, in many ways, this is the ultimate power of the movie. This guy's one of one. David, you love to mount the argument. I'm going to say it again. Yes. From 1996 to about 2003 or

four, I would say, there's the argument that he's Hollywood's best working actor. I think it's a fasting argument. I like to make it this case now more and more, because it's like, now he's not. And he's so far from being thought of kind of as an actor.

Like now he's just like public cook Billy Bob Thornton. Yeah, but also the star of like America's biggest streaming show Landman. Oh, that is true that he's on Landman. That's the thing you forget is you're like and he like fucking won awards for Goliath. Right, Goliath. And he won awards for Fargo. Like he's like spent 10 years. He's fucking

great on Fargo. He's incredible and you don't like that show and you have to concede. He is unbelievable on that show. I would never, would never not. Is Landman good? Oh. Many are doing this. Many. Is it Paramount Plus? It is. It's Taylor Sheridan. Oh, yeah. All right. With all those Taylor Sheridan shows, I feel like

they are very enjoyable as sort of the ceiling. Like, no one's out here being like, you know, this is the great American literature of our time because, like, Landman, you're always just getting sort of clips where like his daughter, there's the clip where his daughter is like, I only let him come on my tits. Like, we're not, you know, we're not that serious. And he's like, And everyone's just like, what the fuck is this?

But it's huge. I mean, this is one of those things where it's like... Lamb's oil? Yes. Because the Yellowstone is capped. You would think of the oil man. I know. But it's, well, you have to own the land that the oil is under...

Do you or can not... Can you not steal it? I saw a flower moon. You just steal it. You know, when Bill, I'm curious about this for Mr. Thornton. And that when I really decided this guy's a dick, and it's a pretty famous moment, it's when he was on

that Canadian dudes Gene Gamesh we've talked about himself a deeply normal man Yeah well he's Yeah he got He did You know I don't know what he did

But he many bad things Allegedly did bad things But he That guy with the long last name He was doing a normal interview With Billy Bob And Billy Bob was acting like a real jackass Because he

Was there on his record He only wanted to talk music We have talked about this on this show What episode It's one of the ten greatest moments in media. I want to know what, but here's the point. What year did that happen? Can you Google that? It's kind of like 10 years ago. I'm going to say

it's like 2012. It was on QTV, of course. I remember thinking, wow, like, you know, I understand like somebody who goes in to do, like, has someone who has had an interview celebs. It was 2009. Jesus. Yeah, that was a very long time. That was when he just totally, I just, I turned my back on

him. But see, because America. America. did. And yes, Griffin's right that yes, he has become a streaming TV star. Sure. But that is when he kind of stops mattering. He just became, he just announced the world, behold, for I am a dick. He was like, I feel like we're rushing through so many things. There's so much

Billy Bob to talk about in this episode. I know. That's true, but we have done many Billy Bob talks. Yes, but this is one of... B.B.T.s. This is one of the Billy Bob movies. So, yeah. But, okay, no, but when... We've talked about him as a side dish. You want to see which times we've covered those.

When are we... Because we covered the gift, the film that he wrote, which of course was, I think very obviously an homage to his mother who was a psychic. Yeah.

I don't know anything about that movie. I know the Perry Farrell, the gift, but I don't think that's this. It's a Sam Ramey picture. It's the film he makes right before Spider-Man. Oh, right.

Cape Lanchett as a Southern Gothic. Southern Gothic, clairvoyant. Forgot about that. Thriller. Well, we covered Simple Plan, which obviously he's fucking incredible. Incredible.

Incredible. And very good movie. We did Tombstone with the doughboys. Yeah, but he's a. Princess Monanooga, we discussed his infamous voiceover performance.

His very interesting casting in that project. I'm not a fan. In the American version, we did an Armageddon drive-in during deep lockdown. One day, we'll do a proper, you know. Yes, that's, by the way, that's a promise. That's a promise and a threat. I, of course, constantly bring up that he is actually

very good in bandits. Uh-huh. But, okay, so like the 96th, my, so obviously it's like before 96, he's in good movies, dead man, he's incredible obviously, in one false move which he also wrote, blood and blood out. What was that show called Hearts of Fire? It was called

Hearts of Fire. He was on an NBC sitcom. Where he played Billy Bob Davis. He was kind of a James Carville, I think. Yeah, it was like a John Ritter sitcom that was like a very, very lighthearted kind of Bill Clintony thing. You know, like Who's the female leader that? Marky Post.

Oh, absolutely. The great RIP. But like 96, obviously, he wins the Slingblade off. and becomes a somewhat inexplicable movie star, sort of, sort of character actor slash lead of a Cohen's movie, right? I was talking to my brother about this, where we were talking about the Tim Robbins falloff, right? Another man who's been the lead of a Cohen Brothers movie.

And another man who definitely is, like, not prickly at all. And he was like, but don't you feel like at his peak, he was like one of the 10 biggest A-List movie stars? And I was like, he is a fascinating example in a way, I think Billy Bob was like this, too. Tim Robbins, be clear as who I'm saying no to. Right.

Where he was just like, he was kind of the top of the B list leading man pile, but also near the top of the A list, second lead, third lead, villain, one small scene. Like, and Billy Bob has that thing too. He was a major name. And Tim Robbins, I mean, Bill Bob is a good looking guy. And like, this is an example of a movie where you're like,

yeah, God, what a face he's got. But he was wearing the suits. He's very handsome. He wasn't, you know, traditionally handsome. Tim Robbins is pretty handsome. He is, but he's also a big galute, and he's got the baby face, and all this stuff. Tim Robbins was right. He was sort of what you described, but he also did art-housy stuff.

Yes. And directed as well. Yes, he did. So he had the kind of intellectual. But the argument is, like, that's kind of what made them so valuable, is that they were just, like, absolute Swiss Army knives of, like, just constantly demand for something, because there were so many different things they could deliver, and they were not easily defined. What's the podcast? The podcast is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

I'm Griffin. It's a podcast about filmography's directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want, and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they weren't there. Baby is a May series on the films of Joel and Ethan Cohen, together and separately. Today we were talking about their 2001 film, a film that I think is kind of forgotten. I think this film is slightly unheralded at this point. It's funny to think about that.

It's the film that isn't there. It's partly a little bit. Thank you very much. But it's partly obviously that they've made a lot of very, very celebrated films. They have. So even a movie that is good and handsome like this one will be somewhat on the lower end. Look, not to keep building tension for the final episode rankings, but I'm just like, is this thing in my bottom five, even though I think it might be a masterpiece? I don't think it's a masterpiece.

But I do you think it's good? I think it's terrific. And it's also not in my, like, you know, it's not in my top tier. But it's really a movie. This film is only suffering from being in insane, rarefied company. If somebody else directed, if Billy Bob Thornton directed or Kim Robbins directed it, it would be their crowning jewel. Well, indeed. But David, finish your talk here.

Yeah. Well, our guest, of course, is. Jordan Hoffman from The Messenger, as you might remember in our last episode, Yensel, from New York City. You talked about your exciting new job, an actual physical newspaper, the future. Could I, yeah, so this is kind of funny. I'm only tinged you up for this because you said you wanted to discuss it. Well, the last time I was in this room

was among the first times this room was used to record this podcast. I don't take that's true. It was one of the first, I'll tell you why I know this. For Yentil? It was on the early side. Because I watched I, no, here's what happened. During the opening bit before we recorded when we were waiting for Griffin to show up, I don't know what you're talking. I watched David pay his first rent check. the podcaster who wasn't there.

Okay, interesting. And he, and then he had to be like, oh, Christ, what's the rent on this place? And he had to, like, look it up. It may not have been the first.

So would it have been, no, you were looking it up. But the point I wanted to be. Fall 22? It doesn't. No, I think he's, he's,

don't worry about Jordan. Let me get to the point. There's the point. I think it was 2023, and we moved in here in 2020. I watched, no, but I'm saying that series kicks off

I can't remember. I can't remember. I can't remember. It kicks off the 24. So then it would have been fall 23. So I think we did move in here in 22, right? I think David just doesn't know. He doesn't know how much the rent costs?

I'm sorry. I, you know, yeah. But my point is- He knows the rent is too damn high, but he doesn't have a lot of shirt. When I came here, I... Breakfast, lunch, dinner. You know, I try to do it at home. I try to do it at home in the morning, but sometimes the call of nature.

And I did have to go into your restroom. The morning constitutional. I had to drop anchor in your restroom. And what happened? You weren't here yet, and we were waiting. And I went in there. This sounds impossible, but go on. And I was, I was just flue.

Absolutely floored by the amount, and I recorded that, the amount of spare toilet paper in the restroom. And I dropped that I had just stocked up. Like $30. I bought like, right, because there was a target promotion. I got like 372 packs. Yeah, yeah. Of ultra gential. Oh, yeah.

You have to go ultra general. But my point is this, not to be disgusting or it's kind of logical, but I just went back to the restroom, only for a number one this time. And I went back in there. And I was flabbergasted to how much. much of that toilet paper still remains. I mean, I'm not shocked. You are stuck. We don't live here. Like, so like it's not. It's like the Beatles. You hang out and help. You know, you hang out here all the time. To be clear, that's not like, oh, we still have a lot left from what I bought in 2023. Every time Target offers that deal, I jump on it. Okay. So, so Billy Bob Thorpe. No, no, no. So here's the real reason. David, how dare you? The real reason I was here, I was working at this other company. Yeah. And I was all like, hey, guys, guys, you know, I took the day off work. You got to let me promote.

this new company's exciting. Bring the paper back. I'm working for a new news outlet. You got to let me push it. It'll make my boss real happy. And you graciously allowed me

to waste the listeners' time. And I talked about the glory of this new outlet. And then two weeks later, they folded. Well, I feel like, didn't they have like one week where they were like,

AI slop only? And then they're like, forget it. Just fucking turn it off. What if we print the slop? It was a sort of clickbait. What of finger bait? It was a very,

It was a very public disillusion. I wrote an article about it. The Messenger was the name of the news outlet, and I wrote something funny about how it was a disaster to work for. So now I'm here to promote a new, new outlet. And you know what? I like your boss a lot better this time. Oh, and David knows all about it.

And now you're going to know about it to the listeners. It's a new substack. Here we go. Run by me, where I publish what I want to publish, and it's all great. The only name you can trust in journalism, maybe... It's called a Hofstack, H-O-F-F-F stack. Yeah, this is Hoff to table journalism.

Jordan, I enjoy your substack. Thank you. It has very much all of Jordan's interest. But you've got to get back to reviewing New York City's library. Here we go. I know you... And it's promised, if you go look at the substack, it's promised... You did a...

Movies, music, and New York City Libraries as part of the sales pits. You know, Sufian was like, oh, doing all 50 states, baby. And you were like, I'm doing every New York City public library. I'm going to get in there and review the location. And I did a few of these. I know you moved to New Jersey. Well, that's the punchline is I don't live in New York City anymore. But you got to catch that bus, baby.

Also, fucking NJ libraries. I was considered. I was considering. I know nothing. Yeah, no even less. The books were on the different shells over there. No, so I started doing write-ups of the different branch libraries. You know, which one has a smelling problem, which one has a this, where, you know, where you

could sleep. And then I moved. So I haven't been doing a little. as much of that. But I'm doing my usual schick, movies and life in general. And please, for the love of God, I would hope that if 2% of the people listening, well, let's bump it up, 12% of the people listening, how many listeners? 16% of the people listening could get a monthly subscription. It would really help my bottom line. He's just asking for 19%. That's all he's asking for. It's subscribed to Jordan Hoffman. It's not expensive. It's $5 a month. It's less than whatever. You're not watching

land, man. You're not watching land. It's Hofstack.com. Forget about your Paramount Plus, Landman. You got to watch Landman? And look, we will settle for 22% of our listenership. Jordan, you are a Star Trek fan. Surely Paramount Plus is one of your... Why are you throwing them under the box? That's a good point.

That's a very good point. You want to keep them around. How great is Strange New Worlds? It's so good. I love that show. I love that show, too. I just, I have a lot of concerns about, you know, this new Starfleet Academy show. Yeah, I'm suspicious.

Starfleet Academy. This is the Giamati, Holly Hunter. I love the cast. Tatiana. Yeah, Tatiana, our friend of the show will be on it. It's just, you know, Star Trek Discovery. He's gonna, everything David's about to say, I agree. I agree. David's playing with his baby Joey plus.

You know, Star Trek Discovery, when it was launched, was like, hey, it's set sort of in the Kirk era, even though it's much, you know, glitzy or modern looking. And, you know, everyone was a little like, okay, you know, because, like, they never really broached, like, what happened after, like, Star Trek Voyager, essentially. You know, like, we've never seen more of the sort of Star Trek timeline. right? Voyager is still the latest thing in the timeline is the core of it now. I think Star Trek nemesis

technically was the last thing. Basically, the answer to your question is sure. Yeah, Voyager is the end. You know, then obviously we had the Abrams movies, which were distinctly in their own timeline and all that stuff.

The Kelvin timeline, of course. And then Star Trek Discovery was set in the Kirk era and then the fucking ship zapped to the 30th century or whatever the fuck it is for the last sort of

two and a half seasons of that show. And it was set in this kind of like far future where Starfleet is lost and they kind of rebuild it and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I sort of got it as like, okay, fine. You're setting it in your own little corner where you're not really going to fuck with that quadrant. Indeed. And now the Starfleet Academy show is also set in the 30th century and is like following on from that. And I'm like, can we not just do Star Trek? Yeah, they're going in. Strange New Worlds, of course, the show we like is the one show where it's like, what if there was a spaceship and it went on missions that

We're kind of, like, episodes of the week, and the crew had interpersonal dynamics. And everyone's like, we love this, do this. I mean, they keep not doing it. It's pretty bad. This also remains my frustration with Star Wars, where I'm just like, why do we keep going back to the same corners, specifically in between, tight areas, right? Where there's areas in between other, like, they've got like a little wedge that they're like, you know, like a little shim. I think there's two years here. There's a week.

A, B.Y. Like, what was going on? There's an hour where Luke isn't accounted for. And I know, just to acknowledge my listeners, I know Star Trek Picard was set after, you know, it was where I wanted to be. But of course, that show was terrible. And was very backward looking because it's about all the old guys going like,

okay, one more, you know, like Jonathan Frakes getting on the treadmill. So he can kind of be like, okay, you know, let's put some green blackback in the gray beer, whatever. It was pretty rough. And then the wonderful animated show was so good. And it was canon and it made an effort to be, but like it was obviously, you know, silly.

But I've heard that Star Trek is now a priority. And the skydowns Paramount. The Lizard King, David Ellison will be creating a new Star Trek. Yeah, they're just going to wipe the slate clean. I think with, you know, I can't predict what the hell they're going to do. But what everything David just said was correct, which is a rarity, by the way. Everything he said.

And two Star Trek fans are, agreeing about, like, the direction of the show also unusual. This new show, they've been wanting to do with Starfleet Academy since the 90s, you know, and it's a great idea. Chadner was always pushing for it really hard, right? Didn't he write those books about it? No, that was something. He wrote other books. He wrote Tech War.

He wrote, no, no, no, he wrote Star, he wrote Star, he wrote some Star, with Judith and Garfield Reeves Stevens with the actual office. Didn't he write books that were a Kirk and Spock meeting for the first time? No. He wrote books where he dies in Star Trek Generations and then he comes back. I remember that when the JJ movie came out, Shatner kept saying, this was my idea, and I kept pitching it to Paramount, and I wanted to direct it. Shatner saying stuff is, you know. I want it to direct prequel young Spock and Kirk.

Well, it's possible that there is a new, I don't know. I never read his books, you know. It's crazy how they might end up making another, like, new Star Trek movie that William Shatner will still be alive and not involved with where he'll be like, I'm ready for my cameo and they'll be like, oh, we're going through a tunnel. Anyway, the Starfleet Academy thing is upsetting because they're going in with

one arm. They're going in with one arm tie behind their back, though, because they're connecting it to discovery, which they should, it's an original sin. They just shouldn't be doing it. But Paul Giumani plays a new alien race that we've never seen. Good. Holly Hunter is the head, she's the headmistress.

She's the, you know, great. The, the Dumbledore, if you will, and others, and then a bunch of hot young kids running around. Yeah, which like, that's fine. Yeah, it's going to be great. School stinks. That is always because, like, Ben raises some interesting points here. For like 40, 50 years,

people have been like, when do we do our Starfleet Academy show? And I do feel like it's always bumped up against, like, doesn't school stink? Like, yeah. You know, they have to be at a school. They can't, like, go on adventures. Space school. They're going to, like, they're going to, like, go with, like, you know, they're going to do the quantum realm and,

algebra. They can do space algebra. But it is telling that I feel like this. The first JJ movie got through Starfleet Academy really fast. But I mean, and it has three very fun scenes and it's like that's all we need to do.

They're trying to make this like Riverdale. They're going to be all stooping. Space stooping. It's going to be great. Maybe a space wedgy. That could be fun. Hot-gloorne. Space whirley. Yeah.

I just want another show about a, you know, ship that goes on. Well, I think God bless Strange New Worlds. But it's, you know, it's doomed. It's, it's, they're wrapping it up. No, they have this season and the next season. But, you know, Dainu, I mean, we got a lot of great. I agree with that.

Did you see, sector 31 put some new kind of bloods in the veins? Didn't that get people rearing for more? What is the worst thing in Star, the worst thing, the worst thing? The worst show movie, what is the worst star Wars thing? You can't ask me. I'm, I'm, I'm a bit of a neophyte in this area. In Star Wars. Oh, in Star Wars? He's trying to say that Section 31 might be a single war.

What is the worst element of Star Wars? That's a good question. I mean, I largely tapped out of the last couple of years. I still think the worst thing is episode nine, which you liked, of course, and we were raving as we- Episode 9, I remember a guy walker. We were walking out of that screening, and you were like, it had spaceships in it, dude. Episode 9 is better than episode two. Sure.

No, it's not. Well, no, wait a second. No, I fucking fundamentally disagree with that. What's wrong with episode nine? They run around. Everything. They go with, like, quicksand, Chewbacca shows up. land on

all of those things do happen you know what I'm like if you like those things by the way I can point to some other movies

you might really like people mock this I got a couple movies with sand and Shubaka that I strongly recommend there's a moment

there's a moment in the ninth Star Wars when the stormtrooper flies and they fly now and that's become a meme

is like bet when the stormtrooper I was like holy shit that's a flying stormtrooper this is cool I was in the moment

I thought was great. I'm moderately surprised that you're not the first episode this much of a nine defender. I mean, I was like it's fine.

I watched it one time. But I am extraordinarily surprised you're not an episode two defender. Episode two is full of fucking Hoffman-coated shit. Well, there's which,

like, well, there's the, it's got the diner with the diner with the director, Getter. Maybe has to go to a 50 space

dinners, he's in his own noir movie, investigating a rain planet with a clone standard. You know, maybe I meant to say episode three.

That one's very boring. Number two is fun. And also, Timothy, Timothy, Natalie Portman, she's wearing a... I'm sorry, Timothy went to Natalie Portman. You know, they're kind of similar. You know, Timothy Portman, whatever. They have a similar vibe. No, at first she's wearing an outfit and then the outfit gets ripped at half.

That's two. For the first time in Hollywood. How is that hot Hoffman's shit? No, that's good. I meant to say episode three. The third prequel, I've never, I fall asleep every time. It's very boring. The whole thing with you, right, is.

Star Wars as much as you're a nerd who likes space. It was never your primary thing. Listen, I remember the first time I ever saw the first Star Wars. It was thrilling. I love Star Wars. Jabba, the HUD. Jabba the HUD, of course,

obviously, I connected with. I know. I just remember that Jordan and I both like Yubdum. I love Ub-Nub. And I love all the Jiz. I love all the Jiz music. I love Jabba's palace song. You've never wailed, though, right? You just appreciate. No, I was not a Jew's Giz and jester.

Not a jizz whaler, but I'm just, I just enjoy the nice shot of jizz. And I, I just enjoy a nice shot of jizz at night before bed. You pour yourself three fingers of whiskey and a shot of jizz. Yeah, it's very healthy. But the, the, uh, David's, I'm doing the motion, which, by the way, I'm not realizing. It does kind of look like something else. Yeah. I think, though, that the job is palace scene of, of the third Star Wars movie is just, when I saw that when I was, I don't know, eight, nine.

It's outrageously good shit. It's so good, so I love it. Jordan, I have long contended. That is my favorite thing in all of Star Wars. Is Jabba. The Jabba Palace sequence, the first 20, 30 minutes of Return of the Jedi, I would live in that. That is my favorite shit in the universe. I wouldn't want to live there.

It's so horrifying. I want to live in there. I want to live in there. Come on. Let's go there. I don't want to rent a room in the back. It's terrible. The dancing girl goes and gets eaten by the monster in the basement.

Ola. And then he eats a living frog and all that. He's always eating a living. Frog. Salacious crumb. Now, Salacious Crum is a truth-teller. He pushes boundaries. Sometimes he misses.

Did you see him on Kill Tony recently? There's just so many, like, dumb comedy podcasting jokes you could make about salacious crumb. Like, most Austin-based comedy podcasters basically are salacious crumb. Did you see Salacious Crum went on a breakfast club and talked about why he doesn't eat pussy? I'm just going to keep making jokes of Salacious Crum doing other podcasts. He is salacious.

Billy Bob Thornton. Billy Bob. The 96. Billy Bob Thorne in Slingblade, he wins for Slingblade in 96. And so he starts to show up and stuff. And by the way, he's got like you got fucking popping in and Tombstone.

You have one false move, which he obviously wrote. Like I said, you have a decent proposal. He does the Slungblade short film, but then a dead man, but then obviously, yes. 96 is one more.

I'm doing this. Do this. 97, he's got stuff that he clearly made pre-Oskar. He's in the Apostle. He's in U-Turn. I love the apostle. That's what I'm saying.

That's a great movie. 98, you're right. The first time he's booking with the Oscar. Oscar in hand. Simple plan, which he gets another nomination for. He's wonderful Armageddon, where he's German,

of course, down in the space base telling everyone where to point their drills. Right. And he was nominated for four Oscars for that. He was nominated in all four actor category. He's fucking good at that movie. He's in the Stephen Gillenhall film Homegrown.

Is that a movie that you love? I could see that being. Oh, no, no. No, a Hoffman. I don't think that Jordan's seen it. It's such a forgotten movie.

I forgot it. And he's fantastic, of course, as the James Car. Carville of primary colors. Yes, that's good, too. 99, of course, one of the most forgotten movies ever made. Air Traffic Controller, sex comedy, pushing tin with Thornton, Cusack, Blanchet, Jolet, like, just the most insane cast. It was a sex comedy movie that turned into a sex comedy playing out in our tabloids as he started pushing tin with fucking Joling.

Who directed it? Mike Newell directed it. I think it was his follow-up to Donnie Brasco. Yeah. Weird movie. I saw that in the theaters. It's not good. I saw it in the theaters and thought it was okay. It's just one of those things where everyone was like,

everyone wants to learn the lives. And it's like, no, no one actually cares. It's the only movie that the Charles brothers made, right? Who did Cheers and Taxi? They wrote it, yes. Wow. Right. And Mike Newell directed it?

Yeah. Oh, that's kind of dark because didn't one of them die in 9-11? I thought it was the other Frasier guy who died. I think so. Okay. Wasn't it David Angel who died? That sounds crazy. Correct.

Yeah, they're both still alive. It's about near plane crashes. Well, that's true, but neither of them die. I will just point this out. But just another thing that, you know, any of our younger listeners might not understand that's important context for this movie, for the first couple years of the 2000s, the world was obsessed with Billy Bob Thornton's sex life. That is true. I thought you were going to say 9-11, because I actually do have some 9-11 connections.

It's worth noting 98. He gave good performances in movies. 99, less so, but he does at least become famous. boyfriend to Angelina Jolie. Right. And there's like two years of them showing up on red carpet saying weird shit and being like, we can't stop fucking. Didn't they keep each other's blood in a vial around their neck? Just a drop.

Would you keep Angelina Jolie's blood in a viala around your neck? I would do whatever 1999, Angelina Jolie told me to do. Salacious crumb goes, uh, 2000 of he wrote the gift and of course, all the pretty horses kind of blows up in his face. With Scarlett Johansson, right? No. She's not a...

No, that's the horse whisperer. Oh, I got my horses confused. Sorry. So, that's a bit of a rocky year, but in 2001, this year, he's fantastic in Monsters Ball. He's fantastic in this film. He's fantastic, as Griffin has noted many times, in Barry Levinson's bandits. One must acknowledge. He does also write and direct the film, Daddy, and Them, which I've never seen, which he's also the star of...

Jim Barney's sexy Texas comedy? Yeah. And then it's, like, 2002, he didn't really do anything, waking up in Reno. Yeah. But 2003, he had Bad Santa. Oh, yeah. That movie's great. Right.

Which is another one of those things where he's like, where it's like, fuck, he's making this work, right? You know, like, and it was a hit. And suddenly you were like, is this guy like mainstream comedy star? Yeah, and can he kind of do whatever he wants? Even though he looks, right, like he looks and he talks like a dog. But like, I've never seen Levity. You're like, Bad Santa Love Actually Intolerable Cruelty, right?

And Talibor Cruelty Love Actually are both kind of extended cameos. Right. But he kind of pops in both cameras. He's very funny in both. And you're like, has unlocked a new. chamber is there a new era and then like Friday Night Lights is like he's fantastic in Friday night lights agreed and then the Alamo I've never seen but everyone always says that he is the one good part of that play Davy Crockett in the Alamo and he plays him as a coward uh and then 2005

he had ice harvest a movie you stick up for I stick up for really hard the uh Harold Ramos movie and bad news bears remake yeah and this is where it starts to just go away well there was just a few years there where it was like what You know, I agree. I do. But that run of just being like, we got to replicate the bad Santa magic. People love Billy Bob Thornton being an asshole. I just remember him is a little bit coarse when he's like, she ain't get a shit rat for a week.

That's the best. I mean, it's just a little bit of a shocking joke. But it's a bad news bear's school for scoundrels, Mr. Woodcock. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this is where. This is around the time when he starts the boxmasters. Let's not forget. Yes.

So the boxmasters was his group that was he. which caused the fuss in Canada with that, yeah, right. They've released 17 albums. I know, I was going to share that. Isn't that fucking crazy? Well, did he have like, so he, did that interview? That's part of his thing is like,

we release four albums this year. Why are we talking about my movie work? He should have said like, well, maybe stop releasing so many albums. Just the back to this interview, just to explain. You've talked about it on this show. I'm not talking about it here than when. We already did. Primo Levy over here.

You can't assume that everyone's listened to every other. Are you just doing the bit where now you guys are replicating the interview? Probably. The interview is great because the guy, I can't say his name, Gian Giam Gamashi. Him. He stands up for himself so well. He's like, look, can I explain this quickly before you say this? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I really am putting a one minute time limit on this. Okay, do it. I really am. Billy Bethlehem went on with his band, and in the introduction, and Gian Gameshi goes, like, boxmasters have done this and 14 albums in the last two years, da-da-da-da-da-da. Wasn't it a Canadian show? Ben, you're coming. Keep going. Keep going. That doesn't count.

And then he's like, and you might recognize their bassist for his film work, Billy Bob Thorne. And then he starts exclusively asking questions about the album and the music. And the other bandmates respond. And Billy Bob Thornton every time says, like, when I was a kid I liked to paint models of monsters and he's like oh okay then he'll like circle around to ask another question I'll be like so tell me about the writing on this album and he's like sometimes I would go on box car racing and then like 40 minutes in he's like what's going on here yeah so finally Gianna's like and he said well apparently you're treating my music like it's a hobby so why shouldn't I fucking talk about my other hobbies and he's like what did I do to anger you and he says you were explicitly told not to talk about about my acting work. And he was like, I think it's relevant

in the context of an introduction. I have no questions planned. Yeah. And Billy Bob Thornton just had flipped out on it. He's such a dick. And the other guys in the band were embarrassed. Yeah,

he's talking about like famous mon. And you can watch the video of the other guys in the band going like, why are we with this ass? Oh yeah, because he's famous. Because by the way,

nobody on planet Earth would ever listen to a damn thing this guy recorded. But he's just like, what do you ask Tom Petty if he takes music seriously? The reason I hate is talking about this. That's the best part.

Because if Tom Petty wrote or directed a movie, you'd for sure ask him about damn the torpedoes. And by the way, the Santa Sketchroom, I think you should leave is a direct parody of that. I know that. I love how you said that. Like, it's like, oh, of course. I think you should leave, which is very relevant to the men who wasn't there. Yes. No, the reason I'm talking about this is that Jean-Gamesi sucks. Agreed.

And so it's like, he wins. And so it's like, he wins. In the long run. Fuck that guy, Gian Gimamesi, who sucks. On the record. David, how dare you not let me lay the table for this for you? you to make this point. I just allie upped to you.

I hate that guy. I've allowed you to make this point now. And we have now twice, if not more on this podcast, has been like, he really got fucked over by Billy Bob Thornton. And I'm like, good. He should get fucked over again by him. Now, I'd pay

30 bucks to watch it. Okay. Like, not 50. Like on a POV. Like a PPV. Like, Billy Bob Thornton is rude and kind of gnarly in a microphone. What if Gene Gameschee starts in OnlyFans?

We're artistically respectable people. No. Cut him down to size. No. I will not contribute money to him. I think now it's true. We've talked about this enough. Because you know what's great?

Great. What's great? The man who wasn't there. Ben? What's up, Griff? This is an ad break. Yeah. And I'm just, this isn't a humble brag.

It's just a fact of the matter. Despite you being on Mike, oftentimes when sponsors, buy ads based on this podcast. The big thing they want is personal host endorsement. They love it to get a little bonus Ben on the ad read, but technically that's not what they're looking for. But something very different is happening right now. That's true.

We have a sponsor coming and say, we are looking for the coveted Ben Hosley endorsement. This is laser targeted. The product. We have copy that asks, is the product a porch movie. It certainly is. And what is today's episode sponsored by?

The Toxic Adventure. The new Toxic Adventure movie is coming to theaters, August 29th. Making Blair's remake of... Reimagining. Reimagining, whatever. Reboot of the toxic Avenger. Now, David and I have not going to see it yet, but they sent you a screener link. Yeah, I'm going to see it.

We're excited to see it. But Ben, you text us last night. This fucking rules. It fucks, it honks. Yeah. It's so great. Let me read you the cast list here in billing orders they asked, which I really appreciate.

Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Taylor Page, with Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon. Tremblay is Toxie's son? His stepson. His stepson. Okay. Wade Goose. Yes. Great name.

Give us the takes. We haven't heard of them yet. Okay. You got fucking Dinklage is fantastic. He plays it with so much heart. It's such a lovely performance. Bacon is in the pocket too, man. He's the bad guy.

He's the bad guy. There's a lot of him shirtless. Okay. Looking like a snack. David? David, sizzling. Yep. And then Elijah Wood plays like a dang ass free.

He certainly does. He's having a lot of fun. Tell us some things he liked about the movie. Okay, well, I'm a Jersey guy. I just got to say, the original movie was shot in the town where I went to high school. Troma. Yes. Yes, that's right.

The original film. Yep. I grew up watching Toxy and Trauma movies on porches. Yes. with my sleazy and sticky friends. It informs so much of my sensibility. Your friends like junkyard dog and headbanger. Yeah, exactly.

Making toxic crusader jokes. And so when I heard that they were doing this new installment, I was really emotionally invested. It was in limbo for a while before our friends at Cineverse rescued it and are now releasing it uncut. But I feel like there have been years of you being very excited at the prospect, but also a little weary. They're playing with fire here.

Yeah, it's just, it's something that means a lot to me, and they knocked it out of the fucking park. Okay. It somehow really captured that sensibility, that sense of humor, even just that, like, lo-fi, scrappy kind of nature that's inherent in all of the trauma movies and the original Toxie movies. And they have, like, updated in this way that it was just, I was so pleased with it. It's gooey, it's efficiently gooey? Tons of blood, tons of goo, uh, great. right action. It's really fucking funny. It just, it hits all of the sensibilities that you would want in an updated version. Cineverse last year, released Terrifier 3 Unrated. Yeah. Big risk for

them there. I feel like it's a very, very intense movie. And one of the more interesting, yeah, theatrical box office phenomenon is the last five years. Want to make that happen again here. Tickets are on sale right now. Advanced sales really matter for movies like this. So, If y'all were planning on seeing Toxic Adventure, go ahead and buy those tickets. Please go to Toxic Avenger.com slash blank check to get your tickets. Plank check, one word. In theaters August 29th. Yeah.

And Ben, it just says here in the copy, wants to call out that Elijah Wood plays a weird little guy who says, Summon the Nuts. Can you tell us anything about that moment without spoiling it? Some of the Nuts is in reference to a psychotic new metal band. Hell yeah. Who are also mercenaries. Cool. And drive a van with a skeleton giving two thingies up on the grill.

And that's all I'll say. Okay. And they are the most dang-ass freaks of dang-ass freaks. I'm excited to see it. and your endorsement I think Carrie is more weight than anyone else is in the world on this movie.

Seriously, get your tickets now. Go to toxicadventure.com slash blank check. Do it. Do it. In 2001, the Cone Brothers released their ninth film, the man who wasn't there, which is, of course,

the 18th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. No, that's not. But... Is the many ones that they're ever going to reappear? Or is he, just sitting on the bench with fucking Star Fox and Clea

Avengers I could put some hair in the dirt when the Coen brothers are making the Hudson Proxy this is the whole thing

with the Coen Brothers is anytime they make a new movie everyone's like oh what did you think of it they always have their story

and this one of the set dressing there was an old timey 50s barbershop poster with all the model

kids they said 1940 style haircuts and they said we started to think about the guy who did

all these haircuts and we wrote this of a barber, and it all came out of these pictures of haircuts. This movie feels like a bit that then starts

being taken seriously, right? He's a little bit their thing sometimes. Totally, but it feels like an improv run of like, who's the funniest guy to be doing these haircuts? And you're like, what if it's like a Billy Bob Thornton type who talks as if he's in a noir? Right, right. Right? The stoic cigarette smoking

sociopath. And really like Albert Camus character, but just like in the 50s. And But, you know, the working title of this movie was The Barber, which is cool if you know it and watch it again, because they say The Barber, like 25 times in this movie. Is that a better title? I do like the title, and I do think it's appropriate. Like, it makes sense for the movie. I think the Barber's kind of a cool title.

I think, man who wasn't there was a better title for this movie. The Barber sounds like a movie now that stars a 50-something comedian who is doing Kung Fu. You know what I mean? Like a Bob Oden and Kirk decided to do an action movie. Like, he was just a barber, and then he does, like, barber. No, but you and I both know if that movie was made tomorrow, it wouldn't start Bob Odenkirk. It's star John Sina. And the premise would be, this guy is an everyday barber.

Can you believe he secretly has fighting skills? And it's John Sina, who I think can be very funny, but his arms are like this because his pecks are so many. Like, if more of these were Odenkirk's, we'd be fine. I know. You know? Like, my problem is these movies where you're just like. Yeah. Mark Wahlberg's going to play a guy.

I'm like, let me guess he's a sleeper agent. No, no, no, he's a superman die. He has a kid. You will not believe that this guy can hold a gun. Did you see the union where he was a union delegate? Is that Mark Wahlberg? Yeah, I did not see that one.

It's terrible. It's him and Holly Berry? Yeah, yeah, it's awful. But he, again, he becomes, he saves the day. He has made five of these where it's either, can you believe this guy used to be? It's a lot of union jokes. Or this guy's mistaken for. Yeah.

Yes. Now, when you say a lot of union jokes, which kind of union are retouched? Labor unions. Like, it's all about they go to Europe and it's like, ah, the plumbers guild will help us with this. And then all these plumbers come out with these pipes.

And all of them are played by Hervey Village. So, Postalbowski. The plummer. The Coins basically have two scripts ready. They got the barber. They've got, oh, brother. George Clooney apparently becomes available. So they're like, great, let's do,

oh, brother. But they go right from that to a man who wasn't there. And it may shock you guys to learn that the sort of pope novels of the 1940s were a big influence on this film. But visually... James M. Kane, etc.

A thing I love about this movie is that they're like, no, visually what we were studying were like low budget B sci-fi films. Yes, that's true. That's absolutely right. And because it's black and white

and shadowy, a lot of people were like, oh, they're just doing like noir riff and they're like, no, no, there's like a major difference here. There are a lot of gray tones in this. We're not doing the sort of like, the dark black, dark shadow thing. And it's their only black and white movies.

Yes. And how many, Roger Deakin's shot it, of course. How many black and white movies has Roger Deacons done? That's a good question. I wonder. Not many. I mean, this was where I was, I feel like it was a true novelty when this film came out. Like, black and white movies had really, you know, gone out of style.

I guess Soderberg had made one. That's later. Now, the good German. That was after. It was around the same time. I know it was. But like, was Kafka black and white? Was a cut of it black and white?

It's half color. But that was a decade earlier. And was what I'm saying? Right, Edwards 95, and that was largely blamed for why the movie, like, just bottomed out at the bottom's office. Which is the same for this one. But obviously very, well, I disagree. I think the re, and I wanted to bring this up, I remember when this came out, and it is a downer of the film, even though I think it's really very good. It's depressing.

This movie came out like five, six weeks after 9-11. Yeah. And I remember talking to people like my cinefile friends at the time, and everybody was like, it's so, I can't, like, I didn't want to see it so depressing. No, no one was in the mood. You're not wrong. I think if it came out a year before, it would have been more of a substantial hit. No, not at all. There's no way this movie's ever in. I don't think

this movie's ever. Well, not a hit, but it would have been like nobody saw. If he thought Thanos, it also. This wins best director at Conn? It did. It tied with David Lynch for Mulholland Drive. They both split the best director prize between John was before 9-11. But so they were, right, they were giving it to Mulholland late and man who wasn't there early? Is that right? No, it's the same year, 2001.

I always get confused about, for some reason, thinking Mulholland's fucking 2000. It's not. Yeah. No, Liv Ollman gave the Palm DeOre, of course, to Nanny Moretti's the Sun's room over, which is an okay movie. I do like that movie. Over Mulholland Drive, man who wasn't there,

uh, fucking Mulan Rouge, uh, the piano teacher, the HECA movie, and Shrek was in. He was in competition where he belongs and where he shall remain. Do you think Thrick 5 will be in competition? I hope so.

If they have any respect. Send your letter. They should do it. No, but I think you are right, Jordan, that there's no version of this movie that's like a fucking slam dunk, but I think there's something to, not just like co-incredibility, right? But there's something to that movie playing it can before 9-11, then the response that got in the release afterwards versus Mulholland being a movie that weirdly in its sort of tapping into a deep existential sadness felt more welcoming to the public post-9-11.

Also, like, we're going to look at the box office game for 2001. It's so fascinating to see how, unfortunately, you know, Hollywood could not meet the mood of the country because the stuff that they're offering definitely is not like, have you recently experienced a national tragedy? Would you like to see a film? We're going to talk about, like, it's a lot of weird, dark shit. In 99 and 2000, you had a lot of very serious movies that did well at the box office. That's what I'm saying. Like you're seeing like a... They're following that

trend. Yeah. So, okay. All right. It's the thing that everyone talks about of just like, Lord of the Rings was the movie that met the moment and people were like, thank God this thing got made. Yes. We needed this now. So obviously James M. Kane is the biggest inspiration. But the cane is the big one because Kane is always about like a guy makes a bad decision and you just like, like,

shit gets worse, right? Like it's always the narrative is always like that. Postman always rings twice and that kind of, yeah. Now, Mildred Pierce is the most famous James and Came novel in a way. And, of course, there is a Michael Curtis, 1945 film that is well regarded, but the Coens don't like it. And they initially were like, should we do Mildred Pierce? Should we, like, get the rights?

I never knew that. Because they're kind of fascinated by Glendale, which is where Mildred Pierce is set. And they're like, can we really, like, do like, the Glendale saga? Because the movie doesn't bother to get into any of that. Of course, Todd Haynes eventually made his miniseries version of it. But instead, they were like, no, let's write a weird thing about a barber. And Shadow of a Doubt,

the Hitchcock film, obviously, another big influence, they say. I'm not seeing another Deacons black and white film, by the way. No, I wasn't either. I mean, I don't know some of those early ones, but I doubt they were. I do always forget that he did shoot the siege and the company men.

There are some bad ones, but mostly good. And the Buster Scruggs, the final chapter is not in black and white, but it's close, right? They really play with the... It's desaturated. Saturated, but it's not black favorite part. Yeah. But as Griffin said,

Cold War. But he doesn't shoot Buster Scruggs. He doesn't shoot Buster Scruggs. Okay. That wasn't Deacon? No. My God. Cold War sci-fi. Yeah. Is another influence, especially visually, but like the sort of

like, yeah, who's a great guy? He shot Lewin Davis too. You said, yeah, as if it was obvious, even though you didn't provide that answer. I was getting to the idea. I'm looking at the dossier about this. I'm not fucking looking at that. We're maintaining multiple conversations to watch. Jesus. Sci-fi, saucers, pod people,

Adam, bomb anxiety, all that stuff, right? You know, like, right, that does, you're right. Absolutely. The film I unfortunately thought about a lot when I saw this film in theaters when I was 15 years old was Pleasantville because it feels like it's set in Pleasantville. Like, and it's got the black and white.

And everyone is kind of initially just sort of like a little, you know, stiff character before. And the music in Pleasantville is, of course, Randy Newman. The great Randy Newman. And this music has Beethoven. And they're about equal in quality.

Remember when you finally engineered the Critic Circle giving Randy Newman a special award? And he like hurt his hip and he couldn't make it. What was that? It was like two or three years ago. It was like a lifetime marriage story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had been campaigning to get him a lifetime achievement award.

Because the New York Film Critic Circle does not give music awards. And I took me a couple of years. to get that Sisyphian thing up the hill. It fell on deaf ears a couple times. And then finally, we gave him the award and he had hip surgery and couldn't come from him. Who except on his behalf? I did.

Me. Because it happened. He thought he was going to come at the last minute he couldn't come. And our chair. It was Wisowski. It was our chair. But ironically, in the photos, he's blocked out.

You can't see it. The chair, when it was Alson Wilmore, who we love. Of course. And she had so much else going on. Right. There was a lot of chaos that year. It happened to be the.

best year. It was, that was the Irishman year, right? And there was so much going on. And she the last one was like, Randy Newman was not coming. You're going to talk on his behalf. He's going to send you, his people are going to send you a speech and you're going to read on his behalf. And I'm like, I am. When is this happening tonight? It was kind of a like Jordan. Yeah. You asked for this. It was great though. But you know, it's a funny story because I get up there. You also must play his great American song book. That's right. I get up there. Well, let me tell you. So I get up there and it's the, you know, it happened to be a big year. It is like Marty De Niro.

Heshi sitting right in front of you or whatever. Go up on the stage and I go up there and I start doing Hoffman's schick and I kill. Good. I make a couple of good jokes. Can I tell it? Can I repeat one of the jokes? Unless it's, I mean, wait, Salacious Grum? I thought it was a good, you know, Quinn was there. Quentin and Tarantino was also there.

Brad Pitt was there. And so I was like, hey, it's a great night. I hear Tarantino is a big fan Salacious Crum podcast, by the way. I said, it's a great night for movies. It's a great night for New York. We're all here. Yeah. And I said, listen, I know we're a little nervous because the film critics are here with the stars

and you're worrying, can any of, can maybe we meet one of these people? Can we make an introduction? So I said, don't worry. Hey, Brad Pitt, don't worry. If you want to meet Eric Cohen, I know him and I can make an introduction. Eric Cohen, for those listening, he's a film critic and whatever. Executive at a... Now he works for Harmony Carey. He's a great guy. But I picked Eric Cohen because Cohen is a funny name. Yeah, so it's a good job. It's got a K. So everybody laughed. Everybody laughed at my joke. Brett Pitt laughed at my joke. But I looked down front, dead center, three feet away from me.

Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, stone-faced, as if they could not wait to strangle me because I was wasting their time. DeLio, Unsurprising. Yeah, De Niro doesn't strike me as a big lapper. Scorsese and Lee love to laugh. I don't understand that I was so depressed. They're yucklers. I've seen the friend, Fran Leibowitz documentary.

All it is is Marty laughing all day. And you're a cousin to Fran Leeville. She and I are best friends. So I got to admit, when I look down and I saw Marty and Spike dead, I was a little bit upset. It's upsetting. Sorry. But I moved on. I moved on.

I persevered, nevertheless. Maybe Spike had just said, like, I don't like Kundoon. And Marty had been like, well, I don't like how, you know, fucking, you know, he got game. I don't know. Anywho, the point I'm making is this. Those came out the same here. The man who wasn't, so we were talking about the man who wasn't there, right? What's the point?

Or shall I continue? Yeah, the music in Pleasantville. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Randy Newman-style classical. The music in the man who wasn't there is not film noir brass. No, it's all Beethoven, Wal-Dwell-Bethovan. Just, you couldn't figure out why Spike Lee didn't like your, your stick. David, you're British, right?

Uh-huh. You're British? Yeah, yeah, was it? Not as comfortable to you. Very good. That is one of pretty good. It's one of those things where you're like, he's clearly had it in his you know he's ready to go with it it's not like he's coming up with it off of his head but it's so wonderful but he's like little impish mr he's dressed like mr mix of spitlick he's like all in purple he's very happy you know i just saw it like literally last night there's this new documentary um called mr scorcise right which i'm very excited to watch which is by the time by the time this air it'll be on apple plus the whole day lewis family is out there this year he's the only equally good films everybody in the whole

universe calls Martin Scorsese Marty, of course, obviously, except for Daniel Day Lewis, calls him Martin. Never calls him Marty. But Spike Lee has a great moment, almost as good as not my cup of tea. He just goes, thank God for asthma. Such a great quote. It's a good thing. Right, because he would have been a priest otherwise. Exactly, yeah. Man who wasn't there. They didn't write the protagonist with anyone in mind, but of course

they wrote Fran's part for Fran. And they wrote Michael Bottalucho's part for Michael Baudillucho. Fran Lee Woods, no, Fran McDormand, of course. There is, I could not find any substantiating of this, but there, there are always been whispers that they had wanted Bill Murray to do this. I mean, that's a really cool idea at that time. It's a cool idea. They would have beaten Lawson Translation to the punch. I also. Obviously, Rushmore's happened already, but like, yeah.

The only reason I feel it is worth giving that. Well, he was too busy talking to the other Ethan Cohen writing who wrote Garfield or whatever, right? Yes. Well, I just want to tie this in. Bad Santa came because What are the, Requa and Farrar? Ficar and Requa, yeah. They were, like, obsessed with the Coen Brothers.

And we're like, can we write a movie for you? Right. And they said... To me, if you're obsessed with the Coen Brothers, you should probably know that you can't. But anyway, whatever. That was their response. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they were like, we really, we like writing our own things. And they're like, is there anything we could do? And they're like, look, we've always thought it would be funny to make a movie about a mall Santa who robs people, but we never actually had anything. It's so funny that they're like, here's our

stupidest idea. Do you like it? They were like, we never had an idea past that point. Right, right. If you guys want to run with that, we'll take 10 points. We'll do something. Right. And they like brought it to them and they were like, this is good. We'd produce this. And that movie was designed to star Bill Murray. And Bill Murray famously would never commit to the contract. And it was like on the runway with Bill Murray for a long time, and Billy Bob Thornton slots in really late.

I have to imagine, because of their working relationship on this, I have to think that they hooked like, he's the, he's the, he's the but they're behind the camera, right? They're setting up a shot on men who wasn't there. He's in his barber smuck. And then like, Joel just like takes a little Santa hat and like starts

holding it over the frame or whatever. I just think both of those movies were designed to be Bill Murray vehicles. It did feel like the Coins had some desire to do some Bill Murray sadsack. thing. I mean, I love the Bill Murray sad sack, obviously, but I think it would, it would have been too funny. I think it would have been a tougher needle to threat. Because Bill Murray is inherently funny because he has a funny looking face. And beyond that, it's like, I sort of more assume

Bill Murray's going to make wrong decisions and get in trouble. Then Thornton, where you're like, the whole movie, you're like, is this guy like a psycho? Is this guy like a damaged war veteran? Like, what's going on behind the eyes? We're going to get to all this. But I do think also, like, Thornton has that, like, Humphrey Bogart thing, where you're like, this guy is such an unconventional star, right? Everything about him is, like, odd and prickly, and yet he is just the most compelling guy on screen. Yeah, like, the thing is, in this movie, you're kind of like, why is this guy such a loser?

Like, he's a handsome dude. Like, why doesn't, why isn't he? But he's not handsome in a, you know, whatever. I'm like, in this movie, he is weirdly magnetic and attractive, but you're also like, Bill about throwing could be the worst-looking guy in movies, right? Like, it's just he's such an extreme visually in terms of his voice, in terms of his affectation. Like, even if you're doing a subversion of the Bill Murray persona in 2001, you're playing with what is a persona that we've all gotten our hands around versus Billy Bob Thornton, despite being at the end of this, like, run that you're talking about where he was on fire. Still, no one could really classify what is the magic with this guy.

Not quite. As evidenced by him being this kind of, like, legit, austere, like writer and movie star. who also is like doing vampiric sex with Angelina Jolie and then like fucking clocking into like you know fifth leads in blockbuster films and killing it and not seeming above the material you're like what is this guy's and especially because the first movie most people saw him was Slingblade where he's you know not fully transformed

fully transformed right now I would imagine at some point we'll talk about how there is a wide interpretation of this movie that he's a closeted gay man we'll talk about all that I'm going to finish the dockey Thornton and the Coens had a mutual friend, a producer, I don't know, who apparently would throw Super Bowl parties and they met at a Super Bowl party. Insane

to think about. Joel Cohen considers him one of Hollywood's true chameleons, despite his reputation as like, oh, he's a southern guy. He likes French reputators. But they had known him for a while, they keep saying. They keep stressing, like, he was in our orbit, essentially. It makes sense also just from his

screenwriting days. I mean, similar with Tim Blake Nelson and, you know. Yeah, no, that's, you're right. You're right. Absolutely. And he makes like, you know, like one false move feels like a movie that Coens would love or whatever. Ed Crane, they're like, he's a very passive character. He's most of reactive. It's so hard for an actor, you know,

to throw them a role like that. And like, we just thought Billy Bob would understand like the stillness and like saying very little and all that. And yes, he loved it. And like, apparently while they were shooting it, he would like sort of hinted his smile and he'd be like, do much? Or he would like cock and out.

Like, he knew like, I can barely. do anything. Thornton's like this guy and the guy in the simple plan are the closest to me. I agree. I'm like, okay, Billy Bob, but okay, you know. There's also a lot of space between those two guys. There's a broad spectrum, but I kind of get what he's saying. He seems like an odd interview, so maybe he just kind of says stuff. He's also infamously, like, one of the most neurotic men in

Hollywood, beyond being like prickly, right? And being very hair trigger. There are all these things about Billy Bob Thornton, where he's, like, terrified of water. He has, like, a well-established phobia of antiques. Wait, doesn't he not fly? He has a crazy OCD that's, like, very, as he puts it, geometrical, and there was an incident on set where he had to, like, drive around the set of certain number of times before he went to the coffee bean,

and he's, like, fortunately, the Coens were, like, completely amused by this, not annoyed. It's, like, one of these things where, like, you know, you read it online, and you're, like, that's not true. And then you look for the interview where he dispels it, and he'll go on some fucking morning. drive time show and they'll be like now I read somewhere that you have a phobia

of antiques and he's like yes I do I don't like being surrounded by old things you know what Billy I get hives it freaks me out I get they're bad spirits in those things you know like I know there was a whole to do like there's a big like they take a blindfold off from on something like antiques

he's like no grandfather clock it's like one of those things he's like very severe about right like he's not like yeah I know it's kind of embarrassing his WTF is fascinating because Marin's kind of like going through his reputation with him

and like his sense of defensiveness you know and like all of this sort of stuff and he basically just keeps being like I'm like an ugly dorky kid I don't want all this attention why are people talking about me don't be in the movies exactly he has that inner conflict

what is your illogical fear in life? Yeah like what freaks you out that shouldn't what's your grandfather clock to Bill and Bob Thornton. Eggs. Yeah. Much discussed on this podcast.

I have a similar revulsion to being in a room with an egg. Any style? Obviously. Yeah, once it's cracked. Okay. What about you, David Sims?

Oh, I don't know. Obviously, not finishing the dossiers, my big fear. Obviously, this is their first collaboration with Friends of McDormons. I'll give you the list after the episode. Yeah, sure. Fine.

Francis McDormand since Fargo. Yeah, which is well. And she's very much like, I am here to play like an image. You know, she's like, I'm not an important character. Although I do think she's very good. She's great. She's, she's, she's excellent.

She has more to do in this than I remembered. Yeah, I mean, because she's in a lot of, like, you know. Gandalfini, this is like that sort of early Sopranos has just hit phase where he's still doing the voice. He's, he's closer to Tony and this than I remember. Right. And when he eats during a scene. And any time at Gantlefini eats, I just think it turns, like, like the. But my memory of this film is so much that, like, you know, the entertainment,

weekly previews and everything. You know, the long lead previews before 9-11 and everything. The hype on this movie was like, Gandalfini, this is his first big movie move since Sopranos. In a Cohen's film, this feels like a perfect tee-up to a supporting actor, nom. And here's Francis McDormand. She hasn't worked with them since Fargo when she won best actress, perfect tee-up to a supporting actress, nom. And then the movie comes out and people are like, oh, they really don't have that much. No, I mean, they're both good.

Yeah. Shalub is amazing. Shalube is incredible. And, like, I remember him having brief sort of, like, critics kind of buzz. He got an AFI nomination, the only year the AFI did a televised award solo with multiple categories. He rocks. But, yes, I think they tried too late to get a kind of critics group. He's doing his character from Barton Fink just times 10. It's the same.

It's great. He's so slick, and he is slowed down. You know, it's less stylized. Sometimes you need a little loop. Thank you for that. Producer Ben, thank you very much for adding something. It's been too long, so we added a new term to the glossary. This is a film

that decides to loob it up. They are lubing it up. Is this the last Shulub Cohen's? Because he's in Barton Fink, obviously. Our friend who runs the Blank Check meta account, I asked him to do a full tally of Cohen

brother's repeated appearances. I was going to save it for the Scruggs episode. But I have the full data. We don't need no Scruggs. But did Shalub ever... Wait, no, what was the point? He never did. This is his last.

Oh, this is last? Oh. Yeah. Too bad. So, this film, of course, was shot in color, and then, you know, they turned it into black and white. Basically, both because at this point in time, the resources were so limited.

For shooting and processing, that they just basically always advise you to shoot in color and adjust it later. And obviously, this is Posto Brother, where, like, Deacons has kind of started to break down all the doors of post-futzing. There's also the classic, you hear this, and for this, it is true of, like, we need a color version to sell the European markets. It is always this thing that European markets are, like, we will not. The film was cheap, though. Which is weird. They're supposed to be so intellectual over there. It's so bizarre. And, like, Ed Wood, I think, is one of the rare, like, post-90 examples. I think Dead Man as well. Black and White or shove it, basically?

Actually shot in black and white. There's nothing you can fucking do with this. But, like, Nebraska is one that was shot in color. And they aired the color version, European TV. And then Epix made a big deal of, like, we have the color version. And Alexander Payne basically sent a cease and desist. Oh, that's so funny. There's a similar thing where the Corn Brothers are like, not only do we not approve of man who wasn't there in color, but it, like, looks bad. There's shit in it we did. that doesn't work. It's not designed to be seen that way. Yeah, all those scenes in the in the jail with the shaft of light and whatnot, that's got to be in black. But Deacons also says,

I fucked around with, like, you know, existing black and white stocks, and I felt they were too, like, grainy, too documentary feeling like they felt like ghost movies is one way he puts it, where he's like, when I'm shooting in color, I can adjust the light to give it like more of a noir feel, less of one, depending on the scene.

I mean, Deacons has been working with Coens for years at this point. Deacons is like a obviously celebrated DP and he had done Cundoon for Marty Scorsese Martin himself. But like I remember this was the year where everyone was like in my silly little

cinephile world. Like he absolutely needs the Oscar for this. And of course the movie lost to Lord of the Rames for cinematography, which of course is a gorgeous movie. And the cameras flying all over and like all kinds of cool shit is happening. But I remember it being that you were like Deacons cleaned up the critics awards and like all that you know and I think almost most telling like he gets the nomination even though this movie completely blanks otherwise and it is the start of the bit of that run of just like even if the movie doesn't hit with us deacons is basically getting auto nominated not even out of respect but because like every year his work is so undeniable it's so recognizable that even if we bounced on the film we have to pay did did a assassination of Jesse James did that get him a nomination so we talk about this in

future episode, but that year he is nominated against himself. So he loses the Oscar to Ellswit for there will be blood because he's nominated for both Jesse James and no country. I see. I think he would have won that year had it been one film or the other.

Yes. He does not win until Blade Runner, which is crazy. Wow, I would never remember that that was what he won for. I knew that he did win, but I didn't know what's for that. And yes, so you've also Right, in a Beautiful Mind, as you mentioned.

And, you know, Lord of the Rings. It's a big, it's a crazy movie year. And this was a, like, I would say, fairly warmly received small movie, like in a pretty kind of loud, noisy year. It was their, the stat I saw was it was their lowest grossing film since Hudsucker. That makes sense. It didn't cost a ton, which is partly why they got to make it in black and white and all that. But it just felt like the reaction at the time was a little golf clapy.

was a little kind of like, there's nothing, this is good, handsome, yeah, interesting, but not like another masterpiece from the Coen brothers.

I was so recently Cohen pilled at this time as like a 12, 13 year old, having just seen O'Brother and that being like my activation moment, I'm starting to fill in the gaps.

But so I was like so electrified by this at the time as a young and who's just like, you guys are telling me they've made better movies than this. If this is my entry point, you know? There is an aspect,

of this movie that plays in my head fairly regularly. It's a line from this film. And it's a little, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, because I'm a little older than you guys. So I'm going to talk a little bit honesty here. I was debating whether or not I bring this up, but I'm just going to go for it. And now's the time. You are not married.

I am, I am unmarried. I'm very unmarried. David Sims is, is not only married. He has so many children. I can't even count how many his guys. Sometimes I look across the room here. and I feel like I'm tuning into Fox in the mid-90s because this guy's married with children.

It's true. I've been married for a very long time, happily. Happily. Married for... I just wanted to say, I also recently got married. Hey, Mazel tov. Yeah, but very recently. He doesn't have the years on you.

Well, so, a loving and caring relationship is something that I have, and I'm proud to have it. But when you've been married for really long times, I've been with the same woman for really long. long time. We met we met before this movie was in theaters like by two weeks or so but we met

in July of 2001 just before 9-11 we met and uh... Coinsman her name is Muhammad Ada no so the our salacious loves that so here's the thing

even when you're married to someone that you love and there's still there the line when Billy Bob says my wife and I have not performed the sex act in some time. He does say that. To a coroner who's telling him his wife

is like he says that to a randau. Every now and then. The guy's like, okay. Maybe David can, but I don't know that he does because he has so many children. He clearly has the sex act all the time. That's the thing.

He can't stop having the sex act. So when you've been back, every now and then, in my life, I'll think to myself, Gee, it's kind of been a little while. I mean, not that this is any, we still love each other, we still care for one another. But has, has it been some time since the sex act? But I might think to myself, gee, it's been a little bit of a stress.

And then do you start scanning the horizon for Gandalfine? What I immediately do, immediately, is I hear that line from this movie every single time. And it happens. And as one day maybe Griffin, a woman will be wise enough to accept your hand in marriage. If only I'm so lucky to go years without the sex act. I'm not saying in years. Can I ask, why are we discussing this right now? Because our guest on this episode is Jordan Hall.

What do you mean? Because, no, the thing about this movie that has lived with me, am I the only one who applauds for himself? No, no, no. No, it's good. You're the best. The only part of this movie that lives with me constantly, but not constantly, I don't want to make it sound like it's constantly

that I'm not having the sex act. But the thing since that I play in my head the most, is when I realize that it's been a little while and then I have a conversation to myself and the conversation between me and Billy Bob Thornton and he says, my wife and I have not performed the sex act and then I'm saying, oh, Christ, all right, I better, I better shave, you know, something's going on, I better do something.

That's the big takeaway. Light a handle or something. I don't know what's going on. I put on the Barry White record and then maybe I can break the spell. And that's what it is. And it's always that line from this movie. It's just so funny that because it's not like you watch this movie

And you're like, this movie is about, like, healthy sexual relationship. I mean, but sure, the sex act. Yeah. Hey, Griffin, David. Oh, wait, they're both asleep. And the new beds we just added to the studio. So I'll just have to be extra quiet. Okay.

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This is a film about a quiet barber named Ed Crane, the second chair. He keeps saying it like he's a violin in it. Yeah. At a barbershop in the city of Santa Rosa, which is a city in the North, the North Bay. He got kissed into the barbershop from his brother-in-law. I guess so. Is that Batalucho is his brother-in-law, right? Right.

Yeah. Am I wrong about that? Yes, he's the brother of Fran Dr. Fran Libowitz. Yes. Dorses McGrath. Right. And he is a barber who it seems like says like two words out loud.

He's Calvin Coolidge-S. You know, I finished watching this and I immediately said, I wish I had thought to like do the tally on this before. I truly would be curious. How many things does he say out loud in this name? He is of course narrating the film. Yeah, yeah. So he hears voice. His voice is across the whole thing.

But I was thinking. this might be a guy who has less than 20 lines of dialogue which is also just interesting to consider in the production of this movie that Billy Bob Thorne is often just showing up standing there holding a fucking close-up for three

minutes that later will be soundtracked by his own voice right. He might as well be wearing a Mandalorian helmet for God's say. He might as well be wearing a Mandalorian helmet. This is the way. And he is married to

a bookkeeper at a sort of department store I guess it is or whatever yeah who is a bit of a lush I would say she likes to dare I say pulled cork

he's in some he's in one of those marriages where they don't seem to like each other or talk to each other but like they're not like fighting either well let's do pin in this I think this is kind of the key to the multiple interpretations of this movie

and it's interesting how wildly different I've seen reads for this movie this is one of those around the marriage In the James El Cain style movies, where it's like the first half of it, the plot moves relatively deliberately, and then the second half, shit really just keeps happening over and over. Because the first half is this kind of quiet will, he won't he, where it's like John Polito, who we have not yet mentioned, but is kind of at his best in this. You, is this his best Cohen's performance? I mean, he's so good in Miller's Cross.

He's amazing. Such a fucking skill piece performance. But this is, in a way, it's his most rounded performance. Right. He's playing a, he is playing an actual closeted homosexual, barely closet. They call him the pansy. Um, uh, who is like a classic 40s guy, right? Sort of a con artist

who's like, dry cleaning. It's the future of cleaning. All I need is 10 grand. It's a classic Cohen's character who's full of all these inherent contradictions where you're just like he is this incredibly aggressive, sloppy con man who It's also desperately lonely, barely closeted, right?

And is like... His pants up over his belly. They love that. But you're like, this guy is constantly at risk of torpedoing his own hustle out of his desperation to be loved even momentarily. You know? There's like so much going on with this guy, even down to sort of like the whole relationship to his rug that he's introduced in the movie going into a barbershop, needing to get a trim underneath. but not revealing that, in fact, the hair on top is fake until the first chair leaves.

Yeah, he's remarkable in this film. He's wonderful, and he is like, oh, if only I had $10,000 for my dry cleaning. And I love the connection of Hudducker there, because Hudsucker, of course, is about the Hulu Hoop, and then it becomes about the Frisbee, and this is about dry cleaning. Can you believe this thing? Because in the context of this movie, you could see the Billy Bob character walking away at the end and being like, and I guess he was just making up that dry cleaning thing, right?

Like, the way Polito explains it when he's in the chair, dry cleaning. You heard that right. Dry cleaning. But it made me Google, like, who invented dry cleaning? It is. It feels like a 50s B movie science fiction plot of, like, they just spray it with chemicals. No pair on the fabric. I mean, I will say that to this day, I am kind of like.

I don't understand. I do not understand how that works. It's basically like they just wash it in chemicals rather than in water. I mean, that is, and the chemicals don't get it wet. I don't know how else to describe it to you. I've never actually seen dry cleaning. No, because you give it to somebody. Well, I mean, what do I get dry?

I got a suit dry cleaned once a year and you give it to the guy and then you pick it up a few days later. Self ain't on it. If there was a Netflix series called What Is Dry Cleaning? One billion views. Yeah, 8,000 episodes. I'd be watching all of them. I would quit this podcast and just start doing a What is Dry Cleaning Recap podcast? Can I just, for one moment?

Just if not pull the brakes, just kind of slow. the car down for a moment, because I'm realizing, Jordan, what is your general relationship to the Coens? I think this is an important question to ask. Huge. I mean, I love, I've obsessed, you know. But you calling out that you're a little older than us. You were able to come up with their rise in a way that David and I are entering midstream. I'm a little older than you. So I discovered the Coen brothers when Raising Arizona was on Cinemax 20,000 times a day. And I discovered them. And I did not see Miller's crossing in theaters, but I was aware of it. But I was too young. But it feels like a very Jordan movie.

Oh, yeah. So I saw Millis Crossing the minute it came out on VHS. Yeah. And then I, from there and on, I saw everyone in the theater. So I saw, the first one in the theaters was Barton Fink, which is a huge deal. And I loved it, obviously. And I, I mourn the schism, you know, because I feel that I've never been able to watch all of the Macbeth film. It put me to sleep both attempts.

And I know, you know. That's fine. It's a good. I mean, I like that movie, but like, stop. You're not going to. I just, yeah, and then I thought that driveway dolls was pretty bad, and I haven't seen Honey Don't, I hear it's awful. And I didn't see Ethan's, um, Jerry Lewis, I haven't watched that. I mean, that's maybe the most damning statement in the world that Jordan Hoffman has not watched Ethan Cohen's Jerry Lee Lewis documentary.

Yeah, that's a little weird. I should probably watch that. Is that on the streaming? I can stream it somewhere. It's like not now. That's the thing. I felt like I watched it on Plex for free like three months ago, not on someone's server. as part of, like, the Plex streaming library. Wow, it's probably canopy. It's probably on canopy. But then now it's gone. And I was seeing it only available as like $20 purchase. So weird.

It is rentable. Yeah. I've read what I bought. It's only 71 minutes long, so it's a breeze if you want to watch it. It also looks like it took about 65 minutes to make. I've read, I've read Ethan Cohen's short stories. Yeah. I think they're very good.

Garden of Eden, I think the name of the book is called. And so they were my favorites. I have my own theories as to why they split. I don't know if I'm going to get into that. But I hope they get there. I hope they get back together again because they can't do it on their own. They always say we're still writing stuff together. Yeah.

That we needed to explore some side projects and we'll come back together. I could understand it. I mean, listen, I'll just say, if you were Ethan Cohen, would you want to hang out with Francis McDormon that much? I mean, she's a pill. She's very talented. She's very talented, but your sister-in-law... This is quite a take for Jordan's launch an hour into this episode.

I mean, if your sister-in-law, as Francis Victoria, you're like, oh, Christ, I got to hang around Fran some more. I think there are two very, very complicated marriages going on in that partnership. I think they're just interesting dynamics in all directions. I would not want to hang out with Fran all the time. I mean, she's talented as hell, but like every movie, and she's, you know, I don't know. She's too much, man. And so that's my take.

But I think that they should get back together because they don't have the juice on their own and everyone knows it. It's certainly not the same. And together, they have more juice than basically anyone else on the planet. I know. They're one of the best.

Like, if I had to name my all-time, all-time favorite directors, you know, they're in the top five. It's them. It's Woody Allen. It's, I mean, I sound like a schmuck. It's Kubrick and Squared at all the classics. Yeah, Victor Salva.

Yeah. I think he's got a good movie in him, even if he hasn't technically directed, yeah. He should cast Billy Bob. No, I mean, it gets a little cliche, but I think they're that good, you know. No, they are. But there are some people that just don't like the Coins at all.

They are a little bit of like, if you don't like their schick, even though they have a broad palette. I mean, they're inside Lewin-Davison, Raising Arizona are very, very different movies, but you can tell they're the same author's there. It is interesting to read the reviews of this film at the time, and as we said,

a lot of it came out of a bad moment, right? But there was a sense of like, is there anything to this movie beyond shtick, right? Yes, no, I... There was a response to it at the time you see that was not this sort of like, is this all a joke, is this all a lark?

But it was like, are they just kind of so obsessed with the idea of the vibes and the look and the character? And like, what is this movie actually about? I think it actually is... What is driving? I personally come away from this film and find it meaningful.

I do too. Which is funny, because the whole premises don't look for meeting the Heisenberger uncertainty principle, which, by the way, I once made Joel and Ethan Cohen laugh. Well, I share this. I made them laugh at a... You shared your opinions on Francis Victoria. I made them laugh, and they don't like doing press, as you know. But I did press for a serious man.

I had to do a round table interview, which is awful. They have you with the dregs, with the movie guru and all these schmucks. I don't even want to get into it. Do you think it's more humanist or... It's the greatest, whatever the... It's an inside job. So I agreed to do a roundtable because I'm like, I'm going to get to meet John Ethan Cohen.

So it's after Serious Man, so I got a chance to make a statement. I said, hey, guys, this film, The Serious Man, has a lot to do with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. You know, who's on the Blackboard, you know, and he talks about the cat. You know, even I don't understand the cat. And I'm like, man who wasn't there, he hinges on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

This guy Fritz or maybe it's Werner. I'm like, what's your third? Are you going to do the trilogy? And that made Ethan chuckle and made Joel smile. So that's a major win, as far as I'm concerned. And they didn't get the fuck out of my roundtable. They didn't give me an answer. Toledo gave me the high hat.

I got the high hat. Okay, well, all right. Like to briefly summarize what the movie is about, because I do think it is more interesting to talk about what do we think, right, is actually going on. You were throwing out the basic setup, right? The basic setup is he, he's the most passive, placid guy, but he makes this one decision that's kind of out of it. the ordinary, where he's like, I will get 10 grand to give to this rando, and I'm going to do it

by blackmailing. The man, my wife is cuckled. My wife's boss, who, by the way, is about to, like, expand his business and give her a prime role in the operation. And essentially, I'm fucking her over. Right. And by the way, fucking over his household. Right. I'm essentially kind of dynamiting everything for this kind of cockamamie thing. And his evidence is a husband knows. He's not wrong, right? But it's not like he catches them in the act. No, no, but he knows. Right. He's sensed a vibe.

He decides to leverage this to get $10,000 to give to a con artist who also maybe just wants to fuck him. And I love that when he shows up in Polito's room, Polito doesn't even recognize or remember him. You get this reveal later with Gandalfini where you're like, he's throwing out 40 of these an hour. Right. And he's surprised if anyone follows up. And when he almost gets away with. with it, but there's a couple problems. One, of course, there is no dry cleaning

business that will soon furnish him with this investment. And two, is that Gandalfini does eventually figure out that he's the blackmailer, and so he murders Gandalfini. But then he almost gets away with that because the crime gets pinned on his wife. And she, after, you know,

a couple twists and turns, is sent to the chair. And before she goes there, she fucking kills herself. Right. And when he accidentally, he kind of accidentally on purpose, kills Gandalfini there's the great shot he looks at his hands his hands do not have blood on them um and then the bizarre kind of final act that the film plays out where it's like he sort of has like all the knots have been tied up right like he's gotten away with it in a sort of way

but then he starts being crazy like he decides he should make a piano star out of his lawyer friend's daughter played by Scarlett Johansson. How awesome is Richard Jenkins of this movie? He's amazing. He's amazing. His first film with them as well and said didn't want to audition because he'd been rejected by them so many times. Right. That he was like, I can't go through the heartbreak of missing out on another Cohen's spot. I would love to know what parts he's auditioned. I mean, there's a lot of parts

in Cohen's movies that would be appropriate. And they use him so well from this moment on. Yeah. And then she like makes a pass at him in a car. He crashes the car. And then when he wakes up, he's, he's accused of murder because they find, they found John Polito's body who I think Gandalfini murdered. Correct. Yes.

He beat the pansy to death for making a pass at him. Right. And, uh, you know, and so then, uh, he goes to, uh, trial. And then Batalucho, who put up like, you know, the barbershop is the mortgage to try and protect his sister, uh, attacks him in court. And so the case falls apart. It's declared a mistrial. And he throws himself at the mercy of the judge who sentences him to the chair.

And before he goes to the chair, he sees a UFO, ignores it, and is executed for his crimes. Right. That is what happens in the man who wasn't there. Of course, right? I guess so, but like, Gandalfi's wife has shown up at his door after he's seemingly gotten away with the murder. Yes. Who is that actress? She's got a great face.

She also plays the woman at the picnic on the beach in Serious Man. Right. Her name is Catherine Barowitz. She's a great, great actor. But great face. But those two performances, she is like too phenomenal. I know she appears in a couple other moments, but basically what are killer one-scene performances in Cohen's films that are wildly

different. And in Sirius Man, she's like the one figure of intense empathy and human connection where I feel like the great tragedy of that movie is you're just like, just connect to her. Right? This guy's life is crumbling. And this woman like sees him and hears him. Yeah, it's a great scene. And she can't.

And then she does the opposite thing in this film, which is, She shoves him over a cliff mentally. Billy Bob Thornton's in this pocket of just being like, why am I getting away with this? Why is the universe lining up to escort me through Scott Fee? I should be in a James M.K.

novel where it's all going wrong for me, and it doesn't seem to be. And we're going to circle back to my bigger take on the movie. But she shows up at the door and he thinks this is like the wife who's put together the pieces and now she's going to blackmail him for going to have a husband. And instead she goes like, hey, I know your wife's not guilty.

I know what happened. We witnessed an alien, a hero. We saw a flying saucer. It changed us. We know too much. Someone had to, like, close the loop. You're good. Your wife's good.

I'm sorry for your loss. You know. Yeah, for the tragedy of your wife. Yeah, getting pinned with this. The, you know, imagine, okay, I remember seeing this for the first time. The UFO thing does throw you for a loop the first time. I had completely forgotten that was part of the movie. forgotten even on rewatch.

Once I saw it, I was like, that's the movie where they throw in the UFO right. And the UFO, of course, visually, it's the same as the hubcap from the car crash and the Surgeons. Classic silver saucer UFO, right out of Plan 9 from Outer. So good. There's a movie called I think it's literally, it had a couple different

titles, but I think its main one was Earth versus the Flying Saucers. Yes, great movie. Which was it early Harryhausen film. That is one of the movies this feels most matched to visually. Yeah, even before you actually start putting flying saucers in it. Can I talk about, because we mentioned the

Scarlett Johansson character, because this is something that I wanted to bring up. There were two things I wanted to bring up today. One was I had to remind the listeners to subscribe to Hofstack.substack.com. The other thing was, there's the great scene in this where Scarlet Johansson is playing in one of the Beethoven sonatas.

And the whole movie is like sonatas and Beethoven. They're beautiful. And she mentions what I think is something that we all know. Beethoven was deaf when he wrote. this and that's when you learn that Beethoven when you're a kid and you're it seems impossible it seems like when you're I don't know how old you were but at some point some teacher

said to you Beethoven you know Mozart Beethoven Bach did the big three this guy was deaf you're like what that makes no sense sounds like like a weird fucking like quirk like he's a you know an ex man or whatever exactly but then like I think this movie also circle you're like A it's impossible how could he do it that well if he

couldn't even hear it and then this movie also circles the tragedy of like and this guy didn't even get to hear it I know yeah He wrote this. Oh, but here's what I had to say. Everybody, please, I need to go ahead. I need the floor. I got both my, I got a visual.

I got both my arms up like I just scored a touchdown. Just talk. This is so important. Give him space. Let my man cook. Ludwig van Beethoven is a man who everybody knows was deaf. He was not just death. His entire life from the age of his teens until he died, he suffered from crippling diarrhea.

He had, and I'm not. You're speaking my language here. Google this. I'm not joking. I read an 1,100-page biography by Jan Swofford on Beethoven. 900 of those 11-100 pages are about him shitting. Beethoven shat nonstop. Now, here's the thing.

He, toward the end of his life. Why this was a good guess book. It always is. Toward the end of Beethoven's life, he was writing, this makes me cry. The most sublime music anyone's ever heard, except for him because he was deaf. the Ode to Joy was one of the final things he wrote Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba

That was about how it feels to really like clean out A true Bob Yes When you The Ode Joy is a Bob There were Quotes of the people who would like In his apartment

Towards the end of his life There were bowls of shit At his feet Everywhere He just He was just shitting and writing music and his aides And he hadn't lost a sense of smells

He was smelling shit while writing old Detroit They couldn't even visit him They wanted to go have you seen Ludwig Is he writing? Is he well? We can't go in there It's too disgusting Yeah He was the most putrid and vile man

That ever lived Sitting in his own shit Yeah But he was creating these works of art That have stand And will continue to stand For centuries The most beautiful works of art

Man has ever created While his body was full falling apart, literally falling out of his ass. And yet, David looks really happy. Yeah, go on, Jordan. I'm just telling you that I find this to be so touching. And I feel that people, people should stop say, oh, Beethoven was deaf. Scarlett Johansson should have said he was deaf and he was shitting for 20 years.

He was shitting his brains out. For 20 years. Don't you hate when you have diarrhea? Yeah, my friends. It's not fun. Preach into the choir. It's not fun. The man who wasn't there.

Yeah. And he was suffering. And yet he still created his heart. West Joy. What do we want to say about the man? So that's all I have many, many things. I'm just getting started here. No, no.

Yes. What do you want to say about the man who wasn't there? I have many, many things to say. I think... There are people who think I'm making this up. Jordan, I'm actually going to tell you to please be quiet now. Can we discuss the film? In the Meshie interview with the box masters, 2009.

Which, by the way, Letterman should add for the... Are you kidding? Come on. Okay, fine. Can we talk about the movie plays? All right. Take a comedy point. Let's talk about the movie place.

Two. Can you give me... Griffin, can we talk about the movie, please? Yes, thank you. I think this film is a little bit of a, in certain ways, an answer key for their worldview at a point in time where they're at an interesting... In what transition?

I'm interested. I think this movie... Not interested in Beethoven's butt. I think this movie is in certain ways a rebuke to the notion that they are a nihilists who are mocking all their characters and don't care about anything, right? I think this movie is an interrogation of a man who seemingly doesn't care about anything.

Despite the fact that he does end up murdering people and pulls crimes, I think this movie is kind of about, despite his misdeeds, a largely benevolent sociopath, right? It is almost a borderline sympathetic portrayal of someone who is actually incapable of feeling or at the very least isn't capable of being able to have

any healthy relationship to his emotions or express them to anyone in his life. He's, right. He's so far gone in terms of like, he'll remark on things like the sex act, having not committed it. And like, you know,

whatever, like his relationship with his wife and how it's curdled. He knows it's not normal. He knows his life is weird, but he doesn't seem to mind. But he won't say like, and I didn't like that. What's weird, obviously, right, is that he makes the decision he makes, the initial decision. where you're like, why, if he's so

mal, you know, like, contented with just kind of like doing nothing and cutting hair and kind of just going through the motions, why does he do this? I can give you. I can give you. I'm not saying you need to explain. The only thing he doesn't like is people who talk too much. Right. That's the only thing that he ever expresses discomfort. But he's surrounded by people who talk too much. Like, everyone's always fucking talking too much.

There's a part where he talks about who is, oh, when he hires the new barberer place of Baldelucci once he starts pulling the cork, right? And he says, I hired this guy because he seemed quiet like me, but it turned out he was just nervous at the interview. Just another gabber, right? There's this term of like, it's just another guy wants to talk all the fucking time and his disappointment at realizing that this guy's another one of those, right? And yet he talks so much about him meeting Doris, his wife, and immediately filling this connection and him being embarrassed that he couldn't speak to her. and her saying, it's fine, I'll do the talking.

This sense of, like, there being a balance there, right? And when he has the moment where his life is flashing before his eyes in the car after he has rebuked... Right, he seems pretty happy in that memory. Yes. He says, my life flashes before my eyes, and the memory he goes to is basically this one kind of innocuous exchange they had. Chris McDonald as a door-to-door salesman, who he kind of didn't have the social acumen to send away. And Francis McDorner was able to cut out a new... And then she sits on the couch and they don't know what to say to each other and you kind of feel her waiting for him to say anything, right? That they rushed into this marriage. I know everything I need to know about you, but you kind of get the sense I think that she thought at some moment he was going to be able to give her something that at some point would open up, right? And even the moments of recognition, what he reveals when he's making the defense to Shalub, you know, there's the scene where he confesses basically.

to Shalup to everything he did. And Shalup responds as, that's an interesting legal strategy. Assuming that he is making up a yarn to be able to take the heat off of his wife and Shalub's kind of given a test he's like, huh, yeah, I can see how that would work. And she seems touched.

She seems touched and yet part of that is him revealing that he knew she was having an affair because a husband just knows and that he caught it and he did it. And you see the look on her face of her kind of wanting to apologize for hurting him. And yet being like, this happened because you don't fucking touch me, you don't talk to me, you don't hear me.

He's not inherently a bad guy or a dispassionate guy or, well, he is dispassionate to a fault. Well, I think that is his core issue. This is probably a great opportunity to talk about something that never dawned on me, but is a widely accepted theory among many people. I want to fold this in. Yeah, fold it in. Fold it in. Okay. So I didn't know this was a big read and I was finding a lot of this as I was looking at like

letterbox logs and reviews and now different pieces over the last. since last night, right? Try to see, like, what are people's reads on this movie? And a lot of people read it as he's a closeted gay man in a time who could never come to terms with that himself. He perhaps is not even cognizant enough to know. It's not, well, he knows

a pass gets made. Because when Polito makes a pass, and he's like, was that a pass? That's not. I'm all business. And that I feel like is... Way out of line. Right. If you're like, okay, that's what this movie's about. That's where you're like, yes, okay, he clearly there's something to

about where he's like, I am going to not have sex with this guy to prove the point that I am definitely not gay. But also, Gandalfini responds to that by beating this guy to death. You know what I'm saying? Like, it is a movie in which you expect him to react in a more extreme way. And he just kind of goes, like, was that a pass? I'm not here to have sex. How do I give you money?

You know, like there's a little bit of that feeling. I would be very curious to know how, first of all, was this in Joel and Ethan? mind when they were writing this and or if they i i sometimes feel with their work they are they are they oftentimes are allowing they know that oh people are going to interpret this all kinds of ways great and they just move on i agree so they might just be like yeah hey like it might have been after like they might say hey some people are going to think he's gay great let's let's talk about there's three there are three big moments right it's the polito moment it's obviously the recognition of we have not had the sex act in several years and is scarlet johansson attempting

to give him a sexual favor. Yeah, but kind of out of this. But she's also like 16. She's 16. We should applaud him for rebuking her. He has like a very like, what are you talking about kind of response. It's the most animated he gets by anything in the film is stopping her from going down on him, right? And she's doing it out of this sense of you've done me a kindness.

I owe you the favor to repay you. But also what I think is being, what is unspoken in that scene is Scarlett Johansson's assumption that must be, why you were doing this the whole time. It's not just I feel like I owe you this. I assume if my father's stoic older friend starts wanting to give me a fucking career set up. It must be

I need to essentially. And if I've gone along with it this far, I understand the agreement. That's what I'm trying to do. And his reaction is like, what? How could you possibly read it that way? Well, he's more... Heaven's to Betsy, he says. Right. But he physically recalls in a way that causes the car to crash. It does.

But it feels, it does feel a little performative. Like, I do think he does, or like, much like with Polito. Like, it's like, I mean, and again, look, I don't want to, like Jordan's saying, I do feel like the Coens are like, look, make of it what you will. But both times it feels like he's like, no, I am not here for a pass. And with Scarjo, he's like, I am not here

for a blowjob. And I'm like, I think you wanted to see if that one was coming. I think he is obviously hyper-fixated on her in a way that he cannot process. This is that era. Yeah, because this is Ghost World and this or the same year. probably not 18. Because she's only like 18 in Lost in Translation.

She's so young in Lost in Translation. It is bizarre. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She was pretty damn young.

She was born in 1984. She's like two years old than me. Yeah. She's 19 when Lost in Translation comes out. She's like 17 when they shot it. I think she maybe turns 18 when they're filming. But yes. She's actually a teenager in this film.

It is bizarre to watch her at this age now that we're just like 25 years later and she's apparently the biggest box office from all time. This is the year where she... Ghost World came out into... Yeah, this was the Ghost World year where it was like, oh, shit, like, the Horse Whisperer Girl is, like, gonna be a start. Mani and Lowe. Mani and Lowe was before this.

I never saw Manny and Lowe. Manny and Lowe's great. Let me continue to try to lay these bricks, okay? I think she's recognizing that he has some obsession with her. It is driving him, right? But we're also living in this guy's internal monologue. I think this is him being as honest as he can possibly be. and I think in the same way that

like if he's gay it's something he has not worked through he is almost in denial of whatever sexual attraction he has going on here in the same way that he still in my opinion loves his wife

and I think she would love for her to touch him and he cannot explain why he is not doing it that's solid I get that I don't okay I think it's why this title

for me is the right title of the film right is there is a core emptiness to this guy that I think is both an analysis of, A, the archetypes of the types of guys at the center of these types of noir stories, these sort of, like, hardened men who have seen it all and get a bad shake, you know, all the tragedies pile up on top of them, and they maintain this stoic face.

And you're like, well, that's a psychopath, right, who can just sort of, like, smoke a cigarette and make a pithy comment and move along and walk off into the rain. The other part of this is, this is very much a post-war movie of men being defyceive. And Gandalfini is a character who has lied about his service, right? That men are defined by either you didn't go and you live with deep insecurity about the fact that you seem as less of a man because you didn't serve because of your fear or your physical or whatever it is. And he goes, that's a tough break-in, fall in archers. Or you served in the war and something broke inside of you psychologically and emotionally. Now you have to just go back and cut children's hair and act like everything's okay.

Or be a total drunk like Richard Jenkins. Right. You just can't fucking work through it anymore. And here's this guy where it's just like, I think the gay reading comes from, and obviously sexuality is the thing that keeps coming up in this movie an interesting way,

of just like, there's something that feels unsolved in this guy that he cannot figure out. He is holding something within him. And so it's obvious to go, like, what is his secret that is animating him that we are not solving?

But I think this movie is about the unsolvability of this guy, which is like, the great tragedy of his life is he can't fucking say what he wants. He cannot express what he wants. He does not know what he wants. our friend Jordan Fish, who was a recent guest on the episode,

his letterbox log was, now on watching this film, my biggest takeaway is he loves his wife so much that this is a movie of like a tragedy of a guy who like literally just can't say it. Wow. Right? He's a wife guy. Can't say it in his actions,

can't say it in his words, like any of it. I do, I think the fact that he's such a conundrum is the Heisenberg colonel of the film. The more you look for facts, And what does Tony Shalhoub say is like, and it's what you started the podcast with the quote from. If you look for something, yeah,

if you look for the facts, you'll find they don't mean anything. And I find that to be rather profound. However, I could see a Cohen's critic saying, eh, you know, give me,

that's a whack-off type thing to say. Like, you know, eh, if you look to, if you try to understand it, you never will. Like,

I could sort of see a critic condemning the cones. Like, ah, those tricksters, they're so smart, they're heads, up their ass. They made a movie that if you try to figure it out, that's the point that

you can't figure it out. I think this movie has enough juice that you can come correct, as they say, and do something this pretzel logic. Like, I think of a lesser director tried to make a movie. It's like, if you try to figure out the main character, it'll break your brain. It's annoying. But I think, I think this actually works. Well, because I think it's the point. I think it's about a guy where there's no there there. He's almost like a parody of the criticisms of them. Right? This is style. This is affectation. This is mood. This is energy. This is confidence. But is it just rooted in a sort of like cynical nihilism who gives a shit, right? And you're like, no, it's actually a fairly sympathetic portrayal of a guy who's great curses that he can't

fucking care. Yeah, yeah, I buy it. You know, I saw someone in Letterbox say that there is like very much an autistic reading of this movie at a time where you could not diagnose this guy in that way. And that they said, I kept thinking while watching this film of Temple Grandin's quote, that making it through daily life makes me feel like I'm an anthropologist on Mars, right? Yeah. Even just the way he talks about these hair cuts, what do we do with the hair? Do you ever think about what hair is? You know, like all of these weird, broken things inside of him manifests in this way that seems

like a cool fucking noir character. And you're like, this guy just literally doesn't know how to be a person. That's kind of cool. Yeah. I mean, forget, I mean, there's the gay reading. and then it could be the asexual reader. Just like you say, he's just, he's, he's, I mean, I don't know if the coincidence, let's make a move about an autistic person,

but to somebody who's not on, not vibrating on this plane, you know? David, I feel like you have some things about that. Well, I've just been listening. Yeah, it's just interesting that there's a film with a narration, where the narration, in my opinion, is basically lies and misdirection or just unreliable. And he says lots of stuff and explains nothing. and he does not explain why, like I say, keep pounding. Why he does the thing?

Why does he blackmail James Gandalfini? It's an insane thing to do. It's weird because it doesn't, he doesn't look like he's somebody, when he's describing. He doesn't say, you know, and I finally wanted to get one over on my wife. No, no, no, he makes it seem like he just wanted to be rich. But he doesn't say that either. No, no, no, no, no.

He does because he says that like he's stuck in a rut. He's the second chair. And he makes it seem as if he were to get. a lot of money from being dry cleaning, being George Jefferson he would finally get a piece of the punch. Yeah, it'd be like he'd be on easy street.

But the thing is like, it's almost like he doesn't covet fancy clothes, cars or houses, like what is he going to do with that money if he gets the dry cleaning money? It's a little bit weird. We don't know what he wants, but I think he is kind of like, do I want sex? Do I want

money? Do I want my wife to die? He's mad at her. He's thinking about these things. May I give my re-to-back? Yeah, it's interesting. Specific question. Yeah, do.

I think he is, once again, in a way he would never be able to work out even to say internally, right? These are things he could not even admit an internal monologue. We should mention, as you said, the narrations mostly lies. They reveal the end of the films that he's writing this for a men's magazine. His entire story is going to get turned in some tawdry, like, I killed my pregnant wife. Why? Right. He's going to become tabloid fodder

that will then basically probably become a highly fictionalized B movie. Right, right. Right. Like, that's what his story is becoming and we're seeing the toniest version of it. But I think he thinks he's telling the truth. I think he is explaining stuff as much as he thinks

he can. I think this guy has no relationship to himself. And I think he can't explain the dry cleaning thing for that reason. I think what is going on, and I tied this back to in no country, obviously a later film, but the moment of the gas station owner

having inherited from his wife being this moment that Anton Chagher shows such disdain and terror at, right? And obviously, a lot of the Cohen films deal with a sense of different forms of cucking, right? And men being defined by their relationships with their wives and living in fear of them

or living through them or all these different things. I think there is this part of Billy Bob where he feels like he is failing his wife by being a man of no ambition who is stuck at the second chair in a job that her brother handed to him, right? And now her career is about to level up. Now, she is about to be even more the breadwinner,

and he is like, I am not worthy of her if I am not contributing more to this. This is where you lose me. But it's interesting, read. He already knows his wife is slipping away from him. But he also says, I don't think he's putting money into this because he wants to buy her nice things.

I think he's putting money into her because he feels like if he doesn't have money, then what the fuck status does he happen in this home? Does he plan to make a fortune in dry cleaning and then buy her things? He's not incredibly smart. Well, that's true. It is not a well thought out plan. No, it's not a good plan. No, but I just don't buy that he likes his wife as much as you do.

I think he kind of hates her. I think he likes his wife as much as he likes anyone. And that's exactly it. I mean, when he has that death, they've had the death vision of the great scene, he's watching her kick. I mean, she's being awesome by telling the. salesman to go F himself. He doesn't smile and say, good one, hon. He's still as stoic as ever.

But you project onto it when he's sitting in that chair watching her go to town. He's thinking, wow, my wife kicks ass. So she seems like an emotionally unregulated woman. And it makes it difficult for him to deal with her. But also, she's one of the only people in this sort of vaguely polite

picket fence society who like cuts through and says the thing that no one's saying. She gets drunk at the wedding. She gets drunk at the wedding. and, of course, and then tells the woman who's about to get married how marriage sucks. For a guy who, like, basically doesn't know how to talk, that's what he would want to say if he could put the thoughts together. And his brother-in-law's riding a pig and eating blueberry pie. No, like, I don't think his love of his wife is motivated by anything sexual, right?

No, no, no, no. I think he is largely an asexual person, but I think he feels a fondness for her that is the closest thing he has to a motivating force in his life. And yet, the whole point of this movie is it's like, why does this guy do anything? what fucking drives him so many of these noir films are like why does this guy get fucking tangled up

in this mess because they want money it's always because they want money but like but if he doesn't want money for himself then who does he want it for

I don't think he wants money I think he wants to ruin his wife like I just don't see it the opposite way right because he makes a decision that's destroying her and then he takes

well he is common pleasure in watching it happen he doesn't care for James Gandalfini that much is clear he is hurt by the affair Sort of an offensive creature.

Yeah, he wants, clearly. He's not, he's okay to stick it to him. Not, you don't want to kill him, but he wants to give him, give him the works, as I say. Right. I kind of feel like in this type of situation where you find out that your partner is cheating on you, it makes you kind of not think rationally. But he, he's not finding it out. He knows. He's kind of sense, but it's even, it's so, it's so outrageous that then Gandalfini would talk to him.

Right. Like, about the hypothetical that's so obviously. Right, right. But it's like everyone doesn't take him very seriously as like. Right. I'm having the fair with a married woman. No one you know is what Gandalfi says to him. I feel like that would make you kind of crazy to like know that this guy thinks so little

of you that he's going to do, he's going to disrespect you in this way, right, to your face. But this is also the core of sociopathy, right? Like where you hear these accounts of like horrendous. crimes and they track down the person and they interrogate them for days and they just never get to the bottom of like why did you do this you know right and they go through the checklist like did you get a sexual satisfaction from it is it revenge is it power and sometimes these people just go like i don't know yeah you know sometimes these people have a whole fucking system in their head right and it all ties together in a logical warped logic but there is a chain within it and

sometimes people are just like i don't know i just started doing it just kind of happened I mean, I think about the movie detour a lot while watching this, which very much feels like a grimm's fairy tale version of a B noir classic, right? And that is a movie where a guy who isn't that smart and isn't that interesting just keeps on fucking stepping further and further into shit. And at times it starts to feel like the character is supernatural, right?

Like mild spoilers, the guy seems to like murder people by accident. Yes. Right? He is... What is almost like Final Destination style set up, suddenly like phone cords become tied around people. people's necks and they die in front of. Right. I mean, that movie was kind of

like, right. That was like very dark even for the noir's of the era or whatever, yes. But it, that's a movie where this guy is just trying to fucking outrun this thing that you know is going to catch up to him. Right. It is so fascinating that the structure of this movie is basically every time he does something terrible or something terrible

happens in his vicinity, almost immediately someone shows up and like hand delivers him a mulligan. Yeah. Like a white glove. When the cops come to tell him the news that she's been arrested. He's ready to confess. He says, well, I guess we're going downtown.

I'm like, what? You see it on his face the second they walk through the door, it's over, right? And he's not going to fight it. You can tell, I think, on his face that he's about to tell them everything. Right. And also, he didn't, he only killed Gandalfini by accident. I mean, he did kill him, but he was being strangled. He was about to die.

He does not want to kill him. And he happens to have that. He's not looking to remember. No, he happens to have that thing. I think he would have been just as half. Which they go, that's a lady's weapon. And he's like, it's a cigar cutter. It belonged to the guy.

Right, right, right. And they're like, no, it looks like some lady shit. But he would have loved to have got him in a less lethal spot. Had he punched Ganalfini in the cheek and Gandalfini had stepped back and then they would have taken a breath. He would have been just as happy. He didn't mean to kill him, but he got him in the carotid artery. And, and thus the story progresses. Right.

But I mean, right. He more wants to humiliate him, like publicly or what. whatever, privately, but he wants to humiliate. Can I mention now the second line that plays in my head all the time from this movie, other than my wife and I have not performed the sex act in years, which, by the way, my wife and I perform the sex act plenty of times. Don't worry

about that. But the other line, and I actually find it to be quite touching, is Badalucci, what is, how do you pronounce his last name? Michael Bataluchio. When the trial's going off the rails and he says, is this procedure

such a strange line reading because he's new to the court system and earlier he's like don't don't let these rich guys fool you they're just like us they put the pants on one leg at a time they use the toilet just like us Ed it's a great moment and then he's like Ed is this what happens

and Ed doesn't say anything because he doesn't know Ed Ed is this procedure and I find that we all think of like God forbid we should ever be in court but you do think that when you're doing something real professional like a medical thing or a courtroom thing like it's going to be by the book

and it never is like if you've ever going to get your tonsils out you would think I find like you know you go to you go to a medical thing and it's like oh we're going to text you're going to text you

to have you come into the next room it's like text what from text I mean years ago there was no text this is how it's done is this procedure sure that's how I feel constantly in life is this procedure

like shouldn't this procedure shouldn't this be you know I recently I recently moved to New Jersey I had to change my... Congratulations. You held for applause. No, I recently, do you want to... Yeah, Ben's gonna plug. He loves New Jersey.

Grandparents used to live in Point Pleasant, which is a great spot. Yeah. Lovely town. Just changing your Verizon account, just changing... You would think... What's this thing? You know, the... What you're referring to is the enshrining of modern life, I will say.

Well, this movie was written in modern times. You know, Battle of which his character is representative of the past, but I think he speaks to me in the now. Guyco is the frigging company. You would think I was the first person ever to move from New York to New Jersey and get my. It's so complicated. It's so, I have to have four.

You're going to tell you something. You're going to fall out of that very comfortable. Do you want to burn this entire chunk right now? Because I know you're working on a comedy dynamic special, move into New Jersey. To speak to Balocho's character. I got to talk about Geico real quick. No, you don't. This is what you can't just say, hey, Geico.

David's taken out of cigar. Cutter. This is so quick. This is so quick. You can't just say Hi guys, Hoffman here. Geico, how you doing? I move to the New York, New Jersey. Okay, bye. No. Yeah. You have to officially change the license plates

and go to the DMV. Wait, wait, no, this is the funny part. This is the funny part. You have to call Geico 10 minutes before you go to the DMV. I'm serious. He says to me on the phone, call me back when you're about to walk into the DMV. You have to do it the morning of.

Why can't I do it after? No, no, no, you could get a penalty. So why can't I do it two weeks before I go? Why don't I have to do it like a maniac in the parking lot of the DMV? Do it right before you go. I'm going to throw a bottle at you. No, it's true. I don't care.

I want to talk about the movie. But is this procedure? Is this procedure? That's what it was. It's insane. If I can speak to Badalucho's character, I hadn't I thought 15 minutes ago about the movie. Yeah, all right. Shut up, Jordan.

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No higher, no lower, small business owner, one. employee, that's it. I own the store. And there's a tragedy to what happens to him, which is he gives away everything to protect his sister who is, you know, he shouldn't do that. But there's also something, again, with Ed Crane, where you're like, Ed Crane clearly is like, I can't stand this fucking guy. Yeah. Right. Like, and I hate that he thinks. He doesn't say anything. Now, maybe if you're 11 or 12 years old, Frank's got an interesting point of view that sometimes he got on my nerves. Right. I hate that he thinks like, this is, you know, whatever, the best you can get. And he's, So that also comes close to an explanation for why Ed is like,

maybe I should try to get some dry cleaning money. Like, maybe I should ask you. And like, why Ed is sort of so disdainful quietly of all the normal people around him. And it speaks to sociopathy or whatever, a sort of antisocial kind of feeling that he's not really expressing. But that's all. Just like Bata Lucho is kind of like a quiet, like little... I mean, if you had to work with him,

with that guy all day. Maybe he would drive you fucking nuts, of course. He would make you want to blackmail James Gandalfame. But all of his lines that sound like kind of cool, stylized, like funny dialogue, when you actually look at the text of them are just like, I don't understand these people, right? Like, I'm confused by behavior, basically. And I was just, I'm looking at some of the quotes here, but like the line where he

talks about him and Doris getting married, he said, you know, I think her line was, I know you as well as I'm ever going to, and she's right. She was right. You know, this notion of, of the relationship never got deeper from that moment. This feeling of, like, absolute confusion, even the opening lines of the film are him talking about, like, the other people, right?

They're going about their day, and I'm holding a secret. And there are all those shots in the car from just watching the passers by, like an anthropologist on Mars. Yes, exactly. This, like, absolute confusion at it. As we're saying,

things keep lining up for him so well, right? Absolutely, like, in sync with tragedy that it feels like is cosmically this guy like blessed in some way like why is this the luckiest man

in the world who keeps fucking dodging the car extent that at the end of the movie aliens try to abduct him and he's like no I don't think so

but also that happens after he has now gotten pinned with the one thing he didn't do what takes him down what sends

him to the electric chair what makes the aliens decide that he's not worthy of their time that they don't give a shit he's not worth studying

right there's just nothing really going on here is that it's like the one thing I didn't do ends up being the thing that sends me to death. And I'm just sort of like, I don't really know what's on the other side of this. And he doesn't see, well, in a way, I'm not, I was about to say he doesn't really seem to mind if he, in a way, is saying maybe it'll be better. He's definitely like, that'll be a place where things will make sense. Yeah, no, he's kind of, he, the last

lines is actually very touching. He says, I'm going to be able to say something to Doris that they didn't have words for here or something like that. It's touching and also psychotic. But is what I, why I think this film is a weirdly emotionally sincere film because it is like a sympathetic tragedy about a psychopath, right? Maybe not a psychopath, but someone who is struggling with whatever, interacting with human people. A little mushug. And I think it speaks to the like Scarlett Johansson thing where he's just like, I don't know, something's animating me here. I got to keep going here. Do you want a blowjob?

No. What are you talking about, right? She has that speech where she tries to give him the gift of being like, you know, they're people like you. They're like patrons of the arts. What's the line she uses? You're saying it. I mean, I don't remember. She's almost trying to give him like, here you go.

Here's your label. Here's what you do. I know you're an enthusiast. You're an enthusiast. Yeah, which is pretty funny. I know you're confounded about the fact that nothing drives you. Maybe this can be it, right? But in exchange for what?

And then he goes and sends her to the expert. And the expert's like, nothing. And he's like, she's bad. And it's like, no, it's just there's like nothing. She's like a girl plays piano well. Yeah. And the expert, of course, played by the chubby rain guy from Bofinger, love that guy. Who has transitioned?

Is that right? Correct. Okay. There's another, there's another parallel universe in this movie, which has a happy ending, which is he accepts the blowjob from the underage girl, and he learns to love life. And the car doesn't crash. The car doesn't crash. He's like, wow, blowjobs from Skrlet Your Hanson are terrific.

I love life. And the movie ends. And then it goes into color. Right. And then everybody's happy. But there's also no takeaway from that scene. movie goes into color age of Aquarius place

there's no takeaway from that scene where he leaves that room and is like fuck it they're wrong I know you're a star we're driving to New York City I'm getting you on the Ed Sullivan show right where he's a guy who's now fanatically devoted to proving everyone wrong and like you know fucking Colonel

Tom Parkering her into what she means to be yeah it just feels like he's like I don't know is this the answer and they're like no that's nothing and he's like fuck then I got nothing Yeah, yeah, that's funny. Right? And, like, my life flashes before my eyes, and the one thing I regret most is not saying

to my wife, hey, thanks for that. You know, or like, good job out there with Christopher McDonald. It's shocking this movie wasn't a hit. I was about to say, no wonder that it was not that well-attended. But I just gets back to the Billy Bob Thornton thing where you're like, is this guy like a pill or is he a genius? Is he like completely out of touch with himself or more in touch with himself than anyone else? Where he ever sort of spoke to these ideas

that was on Canadian public radio or anything like that? I don't know if you've seen the fits he has thrown at the recent Landman premieres. I will say I have not been checking in with his fit for him. He looks at Captain Jack Sparrel on Crystal Math. Cool. He is like...

Well, wait, to be clear, that doesn't actually sound cool. No. I don't think I want Captain Jack Sparrow to start. I'm just saying Google, Billy Bob, Landman, premiere. Is it still season one of Landman? Season two is about to debut in the fall. Oh, so I got time. I'm going in on Landman. Oh, my goodness. I'm going to be your Landman. Oh, wow.

It's interesting because, again, on Landman, he's just like a guy with glasses and a button down, but yes, he is kind of giving like, you know, male Anni DeFranco or whatever. Like, there's... He's making late stage Johnny Depp look minimal. His beard looks like

and he's got like a hat on top of a Kingle hat. And like the most... Wait, that looks like... That looks like Aquaman. What the hell's Aquaman's name? Mamoa? He looks like a deflated Mamoa there. He looks like all these guys. It is the biggest earring

too. A big earring and a lot of chains. And I don't mean chains like Ben Chains. Like a lot of, you know, peace and love and dog tags. What a weirdo. I find the WTF interview very interesting because he talks so much about how defensive he is, right? And that his attitude has always just been

like, I don't care, I shut it all down, I'm me. And then you're just like, this guy is so hair trigger, right? He cannot find peace within himself. He needs to get Ed Crane in his life. He's the opposite of Ed Crane and that like he cares too much about everything all the time. He's the man who's everywhere. Right.

The man who was there. I mean, do you know he was married five times before Jolie? Yeah. No, I didn't. Five before Jolie. Was he married or dating anyone other in the public eye other than Jolie? He was in a years long relationship with Laura Dern who he left for Angelina Jolie. And then after Angelina Jolie, he said,

said, I'm never going to get married again, and he ended up getting married to the woman he's been with for the last 20-plus years. He met up that fancy. She is the adopted daughter of Walter Merch. Wow. And she is often credited as a makeup artist, but she was primarily like a special effects puppeteer. She worked on a lot of the fucking full moon pictures.

She worked on like puppet master in prehistoria. She seems like similarly odd and driven by her own interests. Can you imagine what their home is like? I cannot. It must have, and, you know. I think it's normal. No, I think their basement is like, as the greatest Halloween basement of all.

I think they have a well-decorated house. Yeah. But I just think there's an interesting kind of, like, thing between the two, the character and the actor here? He doesn't really direct, like, Slingblade, he wrote and directed, and one false mood he wrote, but Carl Franklin directed. Right.

And all the prehorses, and then he did the aforementioned daddy in them, and he did a film called Jane Mansfield's car, and both of those barely got released. Both of those are kind of southern dromedy ensemble pieces. No. It's not about Jane Mansfield's car.

No, but there's a car she may have once owned or something. Right. Well, that I would not want that car. Oh, it's the car that she died in. Yeah, no, that's of all the cars is the one you don't want. That films 20 years ago? Yeah. So he stopped. Yeah. You'd think he stopped. Did he write novels? He fucking put out 17 albums. I mean, Jesus.

That's true. His output is clear. No wonder he was angry. He put out 17 albums. Yeah, listen to us. You're like, he's kind of. the king of these shows where you're like who's watching that, but also apparently everyone's watching it and he's got a fucking mantle

full of awards. Lamb Man is the true hit, but Goliath, yeah, was something of a hit. I mean, and obviously he was good on Fargo, like, you know, playing a sociopath, like playing a crazy killer man. You know, he was in a very bad movie with Shia Leboof called

Eagle Eye. Yeah, he's good in that. Of course he's the guy who says you're in a mess of trouble. Yeah, he's like what he does. That movie is so bad, but he was so good in that that I've actually watched that movie a few times. That's the thing he stopped doing because of the TV work. He doesn't need to.

He always used to talk about that he would do the things that animated him, right? Cohen Brothers movie, he'd write his own thing and his agent would go, it's been three years since you've been in a movie that's advertised at a bus stop and he'd show up and he'd be in a big world of trouble. You're in a big mess of trouble, son.

Right. And now he just like does the one thing. Do you remember who directed Eagle Eye? What's that guy up to? He made the Triple X movie, right? The third Triple X movie? I want to say triple excellent. It's triple excellent.

It's the best of the trilogy easily. That is true. He has made three movies since then. Redeeming Love, a Christian movie. Faith-based movies, I was going to say. One of them was, at least. Shut in, which is sort of like a thriller that didn't seem to go anywhere. And then, yeah, another religious movie, Mary.

Wow. So his Eagle Eye is his masterpiece. And it looks like Anthony Hopkins. in the one, I bet he was working real hard. The film came out November 2nd, 2001 in limited release, but this is to speak to the sort of

you know, the box office offerings at the time. I want to note that while this movie was not a big hit, it's opening the same weekend in limited release is Amelie. And Amelie was a movie that obviously post-9-11 America was like, we like this. Whimsy please.

And, you know, was like the film that broke box office records in your up in 2000, you know, it took a long time to come to the States and then it landed at just the right moment and just the right climate. I need a French pixie to tell me how to live right now. And then like building the house. And people like, no. Where's the French pixie? Now number one at the box office this weekend, Griffin, is an animated film that is good. We have

remarked upon its possibly deleterious effects on animation. It's called Monsters. As a whole. It is Monstersing. It is Monsters. And is also cited as one of the first big 9-11, post-9-11 hits. Yes, it has a huge opening weekend. $62 million. And the Pixar folks were like, we thought the film was good. It was tracking well, but then it kind of like wildly overperformed. And there was this feeling of like, oh, this is exactly what people want.

I paid to see it now. You know, it's funny. I mentioned that my wife and I first met right around this time period. We, we, I remember the first time I ever saw the trailer. for Monster Zinc was like one of the first dates with my wife, with whom I have the Sex Act, perform the Sex Act. Starting to get a little Lady Doth protest.

It's not much of a performance. We perform the sex act, and early on, we did it more frequently. And I remember going to see at the Ziegfield, may she rest in peace, who went to Ziggfield and saw a funny girl. They had a rebroad. And we saw the trailer for Monster Zink,

and we'd been dating for two weeks, and I'm like dying at the trailer because Mike Wazzowski and Sully. I was going to say. Dying it. the trailer. I go, like, I can't wait to see that. Mike was asking a bit of a spiritual animal for you. I love, I love Monstersink.

The sequel, which was a prequel, not so good. I like it quite a bit. I've only seen it once. But Monsters Inc is fucking five star. It's very good. I've seen it a billion. So I applaud it being number one at the box office, and I think it should have been. Thank you. What did it open to 50 or 60?

$62 million. In 2001. That was one of the bigger, I think that was one of the ten biggest openings of all time at that point? Well, I don't know. And we'll never know. Number two at the box office is a science fiction action film starring a major star who is sort of trying to cross over into American stardom. It is James Mowellon's film The One, starring Jetley and Jason Satham.

Jason Satham's kind of the two in that one. You don't want to be the two and the one. It's like it's sort of like Highlander with like dimensions. Right. I've never seen the one. It's multi-verse Highlander. It's like almost every Jetley, Hollywood. Hollywood movie. There's stuff.

But it doesn't quite make sense. The premise on paper, like just, if someone hands you a slip of paper, and it says Jet Lee has to travel across the multiverse, killing other versions of himself, so he can absorb their power. The more than he kills, the more powerful it becomes, you're

like, great. And you're like, congrats, five million dollars. We're buying you pitch. You open up the fucking final draft. You're like, what is this? How do you write this movie? Like, you feel it where you're like, the premise is so good and there's kind of no good way to dramatize it. It's got some cool stuff in it. It's got some cool stuff in it.

It's a James Long's follow up to the final destination too. Made 43 million in the U.S. Not a, you know, did okay. And indeed, it does have a young state. I'm back when he was like a true martial artist. Number three, also new. These are all new this week. Is a thriller starring actors? And, you know,

2001. Thriller. Is it domestic disturbance? Thank you. I just somehow knew you needed nothing. I can tell you why. Travolta in his shoulder-ish length in a period. I think he's pretty close-cropped in that one. Is he, let's see. He's, his wife. John Travolta,

Terry Polo. Terry Polo and Steve B. Sammy. Is dating Vince Vaughn and he's convinced that her, his wife's new boyfriend slash husband is a psychopathic murderer. And he's trying to protect his son, but it turns up Bouchemi is actually the villain. That's the reason. This is his... Okay, you're right.

Sort of like... You're right. It's swordfish with the ghosty shape. Right. So double Bushimi because he's in Monsters Inc as well. That is why I remembered and got it so quickly because it was a big Boussimi weekend. And also...

Buccemi weekend. Busemi weekend. I got caught up on saying Busemi and then stumbled on weekend. I think it's Boussi. It was the one where he got... It's Busemi. It's Buccemi. It's Buccemi. Seth Rogen corrected me. And it's Scorsese.

It's Scorsese. It's scorcheezy. It's scorchy. Busemi got like slashed in the face in a bar fight while they were making that move. Vince Vaughn and Steve Busemi went out drinking in North Carolina where they were following the movie and Steve Busemi was stabbed in the head. That's terrible. And they were trying to keep his character a secret because he was kind of the John Doe in the seven of the film. Because if you know Busemi's in it, you're like, I bet he's going to try out to be the bad guy, right?

That's the misdirect. But then it got all this news coverage because you're like beloved character after. Yeah, yeah. Stabbed in a head with beer bottle. But yes, Busemi was king of the box office this weekend. Number four at the box office is a film in which an alien is allowed to be frank. An alien is allowed to be frank. It's a motion picture called K-Pax.

Oh, this is K-Pax. Wait, this is so funny. This, they are... Let me tell you. Wait, wait, wait. One thing that K-Pax ain't is funny. No, no, no, but this is funny.

Right now, the day we're doing this recording, like, less than 24 hours ago, a friend of mine texting me, they're doing. a special Blu-ray re-released in a steel book of K-Pax. I'm like, who the fuck is going to pay for that? Who wants that? This is the disastrous end game of steel books or whatever where it's like, I guess we have to do

K-Pax? No, Ben, no. I'm not doing it. Griffin bought K-Pax? I'm not. He just did it. I bought the rights. I'm putting it on my own label. Griffin's select. He's eating a banana with the skin on. There's five K-Pax books. They only filmed the verse. Wild. I just want to bring up

Is L packs and N packs In future episode Shortly upcoming episode And Talable Cruelty Next week's episode Or is there one in between No I think you're right right We talk about how

At one point Jonathan Demi and Will Smith Fluttered with making that movie together Apex While they were trying to make A tolerable cruelty together Came out of originally Truth about Charlie's supposed to be

Demi and Smith Demi was so desperate to work with Smith they also flirted with doing K-Pax. We've all flirted with K-Pax. Demi-Wil-Smith K-Pax. I love Entar-O-Cruity, but Demi's intolerable cruelty would have been great, too. It'd be fascinating. Yeah.

His, I'd prefer his K-Pax, too. You know, I will say something to you all, listeners and people in the room. I've never seen K-Pax. Jordan. When's your birthday? Send me your new address to New Jersey. That's right. Ben, I know you said that I can't buy the K-Pax dealbook, but can I buy it for Jordan?

Can't, can't, do they get K-Pax in New Jersey? I'm gonna buy a K-Pax. What, why is he called? Is that his name? Is his name K-Pax? No, his name is planet. He claims to be from a planet called K-Pax. Right. Where is he crazy?

He's Mork from Ork with Bono's sunglasses. Jeff Bridges was the Starman. Sure. So it's Starman meets Morque for Morg. In this, he's the therapist. In this, he's the Robin Williams and the Awakening's. Number five of the box office. Yeah.

Is the rare Shalub Star-Rour. first build in this film? He's first built. Wait, no, that's... Fripping with Lou. Well, Big Night? No, how would that? That made 12 now.

In the year 2001, there's a movie where Shalub is first built. It's a live action picture. Can you give me a genre? Horror. Oh, okay. It's like the insidious of 2001. It's not like 13 ghosts. It is 13 ghosts.

Wow. Shalup is the first build and 13 ghosts? He is a lead character. He's a ghost hunter. Oh, my God. He's stuck in above... Embeth Davids and Matthew Lillard and Shannon Elizabeth.

When will they bring us the 14th ghost? One of a past guest and friend of the show, Pilot Furowitz's favorite movies. 13 ghosts. I multiple times went to Pilot's house and was like what's going on? Watching 13 Ghosts? I was like, 13 ghosts.

Yeah, she loops a ghost on her. We have to wear weird glasses to see the ghosts. Yeah, Blu-ray.com, a great resource. Has some of the most deranged message boards. And there's a thread that for me is one of the greatest American texts of the last 10 years that is a guy who is adamant that 13 ghosts was released in 3D and keep saying anyone have any word on when it will come out in 3D Blu-ray. And people respond, there is no 3D version of this movie. It wasn't released in 3D. And he keeps describing how strong his memory was

of seeing it in 3D and saying, and the 3D was really good. And then people are just pulling out digital 3D doesn't happen until this point. And that year it would have been. an anaglyph. It wasn't anaglyph. There's no record of it anywhere. And then he starts going to other message boards and being like, these people shut me down. Wow. You must have the answers. He's living in his own alternative reality.

13 ghosts. The 13th floor, remember that movie? Yeah, 13. Was that the same year? No. No, I feel like the 13th floor is like 99. Because that was a, that movie is sort of Matrix. Was that in your cyberpunk watch? Sure was. Yeah. That is a movie

that is based on a very, very dense hard sci-fi now called Simulacrin 3, and the Rainier-Verner Fastbinder famous miniseries rolled on a wire. It's based on that same text. What? I had no idea.

I've seen both of them. 13th floor is based on both of those things, which are both, and Hold on a wire is someone in the wire is not based on that same source material, but it is. No, it is. But like, it's using both. That's crazy.

And it's got such dense ideas. And at the same time you're like, Craig Bierko is the star of this. It's not... It's Birko and Mall? It's Birko and Mall, baby. I mean... How did this go wrong?

It's a movie, and it's got like 15 twists. You know, it's got all this, like, what is reality? I'm comfortable enough to say, I don't think I understood it. I don't understand it at all. I also know it's six hours long and felt like it was rushed.

So I can't imagine like the fucking Columbia Pictures 100-minute version of it. Let me tell you, it feels a little rush. There's another... I cannot deny that. There's a French movie called, I think it's called Jeetem, Jettem, which is also like about

brain universes and whatever, and I don't understand that movie. Levels of consciousness and reality. A lot of the time these things are that's an Alan René movie, I believe. We, we. You know, right, are about how we can't understand. Much like the man who wasn't there. If you look for

the facts, the facts aren't there. Number six to the box office, I agree with that. Writing Cars the Boys. A nice movie. Solid Penny Marshall movie that I assume we'll be covering any time day now. Eminently. You can start doing the math how many episodes until we cover that. Number seven from hell Speaking of Johnny Depp on myth

Not a bad move on opium or something But you know I like the movie Really? Yeah, I like from I mean I love the graphic novel I saw it in the theater and said This is a nice way to spend two hours Remains insane that that graphic novel was adapted

By the Hughes Brothers starring Johnny Depp But yeah And was a moderate hit It did okay Yeah number eight is training day Which did great Obviously Boom! That was the kind of thing

Again in the fall of people We like this kind of darkness really, really kind of like over the top. My memory also is that it was a movie that was supposed to come out like September 16th and they like kicked it like a month out of fear of like, is this too intense for people? And then it overperformed. And people were like, solid programmer and then it wins Oscars.

It sure did. Right. Number nine is the bandits, the aforementioned bandits. So Thornton is playing. Although that movie underperformed, obviously. You love to remind you. Well, it did. It did.

Because it was right after six. sense and stuff where it's like as well as back. And then 10 is serendipity. Oh, sure. Bad rom-com. Yeah. Yeah. About the Russian tea house. Hot chocolate. Yeah. Serendipity. Yeah. Yeah.

Serendipity. I never saw it. It's not very good. I've had their hot chocolate. Those QSEC movies after High Fidelity, where Hollywood is like, you're a rom-com star. And he just seems so angry about that fact. You say this? And yet, I watch fucking America's Sweethearts. And I'm like, he is on

fire in this. I can tell he doesn't give a shit. You have defended that movie on several episodes at this point because you've watched it sometime in the last six months. And your defense of it is like spread out over a few episodes. And now I'm going to have to go and watch like, who directed that? Who's studio executive director? Joe Roth's America's sweetheart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I remember being a two star movie. What was the last two and a half thing John Cusack was in that wasn't, that was memorable? That wasn't a direct of it. What about Shirek?

He's insane in that movie. I always forget that he's in that. But he is good in that. It's an interesting performance. Yeah, it might be bad. Let's say he's notable in that. But it's not a directed video shot in Bucharest. I mean, Lee Daniels de Butler, one of the weirdest performances ever.

He's Nixon in that one? He's Nixon. He plays Nixon like Lloyd Dobler. And he's like, I'm not a crook. Checkers. But love and mercy, he's the less engaging part of that film. Although I do think he is quite good. No, he's great.

But that's all, that movie's at least seven years old. More. More. That movie's like close to 10 years old. It's really good. It has been a while. That is,

he's a weird millionaire. He's like, it's a, I forget the guy's name, but he was like a film financier who was like, I want to make something. And people were like,

yeah, good luck with that buddy. And Steve Bannon? Well done. It's Steve Manuchin. That's who it is. Is it real? No.

No, no, no. I forget the name of the guy, but I'm truly, I'm scrolling back and I'm not finding the last thing he was, in, I would say, of any legitimacy was Shirek, which was now 10 years ago. That's like

2016 or whatever? That's 2015. You know, F that guy. He's got to get his shit since then. Arsenal blood money, singularity distorted, River Runs Red, never grow old pursuit. I mean, like, and he doesn't even really have an excuse because when Nicholas Cage was doing this nonsense, he was in intact dead. He had to do it.

It's Bill Polad who is like part of the Polad family who owned the Minnesota Twins. He's the one who did Levin who mostly produces. And he did the the Casey Affleck one. Yeah, Dreaming Wild. I believe that John Kusack could say to his managers,

look, I make 10 of these bullshit movies a year. Let me do seven instead and give me one real movie. There's a director that they would love to cast a good... I think he's deeply cynical and doesn't care enough anymore. Well, then F him. I agree. That's the only the vibe I've got. Because there are people that want to work and he's talented.

He's wasting his time. He meant so much to me. And it's like, while I will defend shit like serendipity in America Sweden, where I'm like, this guy on autopilot had juice that people today wish they could conjure up. That was him at his most checked out. What's a recent movie where you could, like Richard Jenkins shows up in the man who wasn't there? Where could you

plop John Cusack and say, what a great performance? I think he's truly like, sure, my quote is, $5 million. And they're like, you're not getting that if you do one good scene in a Cohen Brothers movie. I think he's just got a huge ego. He doesn't want to do it. He is notoriously one of the biggest assholes in Hollywood. I mean, Nick Cage had

to do it because he was in tax. He had tax problems. Of course, Bruce Willis, we know he was banking up because he was sick. of Cusack's closest friends and collaborators no longer speak to him anymore. It's pretty obvious how... Steve Payne could tip robins. He's on a right flow by himself.

You know, within enough about him. His politics are normal. Oh, he's not normal. He's post-swastikas on X. And then he deletes them. He says, I didn't know that was anti-semitic, you know. I just wanted to share something. Yeah.

So, Jordan, a running theme with these kinds of movies is that I watch it and I'm like, this shit would work out for me. I would get away with all of it. And so I just want to kind of walk through, if I may, how I feel like I could pull off

a happy ending. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Still blackmail that motherfucker. Sure. So you want to do that. Right.

Okay. But I don't invest in dry cleaning. Right. You see that coming a mile off. Money. Right. Yeah. I'm also going to say right off the bat,

even before that point, I think just like a bed of 10 years of being over. and communicative with your wife. Sure. I like that. Having a healthy, trusting relationship. Having the sexual relations.

Yes, right. But then, of course, black male. Performing with sex act. Okay. We quit our jobs. Me and Francis, go to the happiest place on Earth. Disneyland. Hey.

I like, it is the 40s. I think it doesn't exist yet, but I'm going to allow it. Fuck, okay. You go, you start buying land. You go to Wildwood, New Jersey. We rekindle the marriage. Okay. So maybe Niagara Falls, let's say.

Sure. Cue salacious crumb laugh Rye Playland Was that going? Yeah, I think that one's really old Gailafini still gets in trouble for the embezzlement, okay? Yeah.

Right? Maybe he kills Polito. I don't know. It's not my problem. By the way, this is really... I had to work it out. No, no, it's true. Right play land opened in 1928.

I told you, I knew it was old. Me and Francis moved to New York City by a brownstone. Hey, that real estate baby, that will pay off. Now you're just got... Right, you've got investment insight.

Okay, I become a successful abstract expressionist artist because that seems easy. Yeah, totally easy. And also it's getting deeply cynical. Also, me, Ben, buy some IBM stuff. Okay, yeah, yeah. Also, place bets on winners of the World Series that you know are going to happen.

Yeah, right. Be like, yeah, the bowls are going to run the table in the 90s. I like that this is the first time you're, if I had been in this movie, it would have worked out, basically involves you being a time trap. It's just like Googling stuff that will happen. You're in the period. Okay.

but you have the knowledge that you have. Lastly, and then fucking like Muro is like, wait, someone did dots before I thought of that or whatever. Copyrighted the term computer. Jackson... What if astronauts had ice cream in the garbage can?

Invest in Tang. Buy Tang stock. Okay. Lastly, though, I see an alien. They take me on their ship. We become good friends. Besties.

That's the thing. Do you think Joel and Ethan ever had? the way, that was terrific then. Do you think the Coins would appreciate you saying all that? For sure. Yes. Individually, though,

though, not as a unit. Unfortunately. Now, do you feel that there was ever a moment when they were spit following the script where they said, and then Billy Bob gets on the spaceship? No.

No. No, if only because, you know, there's a clip that goes around a lot of Guillermo Dodro interviewing them for the Lewin Davis DVD. It's one of the best extended talks they've ever done. It's like 45 minutes.

They'll talk to him. Of talk and shop. And he says, like, you know, moment, to jump ahead, you know, we'll cover this in weeks from now, but where Lewin Davis sees the offering to the town where he knows his illegitimate son lives. The devastating scene. And all since there, and he drives past. And you think you know, well, that's obviously where the movie's going. That's going to be the next 20 minutes of not the ending. And he said, did you ever consider that? Did you do the exercise? And you went, you know,

it's funny, we never once until this moment considered that we could have written that he drives there. And I think that is just kind of the way they think. Like, the end. are you write the moment of the person not choosing the thing. They never do the mental exercise of what if they did the thing. Yeah. Yeah. It just seems to be a pattern with them. For sure. Yeah. And that's why they're great.

And I think this movie, if I just kind of conclude my read on it, is like this tragedy for them about the way that they think people perceive them as like, imagine if you actually didn't care about anything, you know? Well, yeah. Because what a miserable way to live life. They had been now making movies

for almost 15 years, right? So they'd been around the block and they'd received plenty of criticism. And even though they're cool guys and they're the smartest guys in the room, it had to have gotten under the skin. I appreciate your read on this as this is their rebuke to their critic. And they have this kind of steely, deadpan vibe. They don't want to speak much. They're stonefaced in interviews. Yeah. But they also, they did make them laugh. They are funny. Of course, I don't forget. That they are funny in interviews about this movie, though, where they're like, of course, Labowski got ignored by awards bodies. Of course, oh, brother.

was sort of like, you know, just this comedy. You know, like, and then this, we take it to Cannes, we win best director. Because they're like, yeah, it's black and white. You know, like, we made an arty movie again. Like, they are always so deflective of any kind of like, oh, no, we really care about what, you know, the critics think or what the voters think. And I believe them. I don't think they really care. They know that stuff helps.

I think if this movie was meant to be, like, an aggressively defensive retort to their critics. No, it's not that. Right. They would have been more direct about it. I think it's more of them kind of interrogating the idea of how they're perceived, right? This notion. I think you're right. And I think if they had gone stronger, they would have said themselves, why are we care? Like, you know, like, who are we to be upset about our critics?

Like, we get to make movies. Like, let's shut up and make movies. Right. I think they're too self-aware. No, but it's like an imaginative exercise of like the type of person they're accusing us of being. How would that person even function in the world? Yeah. Right?

If you truly just don't give a shit. and just kind of stand around looking cool saying cool stuff. David's checking us watch. Is it time to go? We've been yapping. Jordan, we come to our listeners

with one simple request. We just want 157% of you to sign up for Hofstack. Offstack.com and your writing is elsewhere. I write for movies and TV and stuff, but it's true. The kids are going crazy for Hofstack.

They're loving it. TikTok is out. Hofstack is in. We got any new salsa reviews coming? I miss you doing that work. You know, it's funny because I've been, there might be some listeners who do subscribe to the Hofstack saying, hey, buddy, when's your next update? I don't write constantly. I need to get back into that.

But what I predict is that when this episode airs in X amount of weeks, there will be a torrent of material. And it's going to be great. So if you buy now, right now, the low, low price of X amount of dollars per, I should probably raise the price real quick. No, I'll lower it. I'll lower it. Okay, yeah, lower it. it's going to be great. And the people listening, you know,

the blog that was there is my house stack. Oof, is it a good blog? Let me tell you. And vlog. And occasionally I'm a vlog. When I'm too lazy to write. I just talked.

Yeah, the camera loves him. I did a vlog about weapons. I loved weapons. That was a good movie. Do you think weapons will be nominated for the best original screenplay nomination?

I floated this on Katie's podcast, Katie Rich from the show, also Subdecker, where I was like, if that movie is a true phenomenon, phenomenon, you never know. And it's kind of... Heading in that direction.

It's kind of heading in that direction. We're recording this on the eve of its second box office weekend. And she rightly was like, you know, there's a big, big sort of, you know, barrier to that kind of horror movie. Something like what Coogler did with sinners, where it's mixed with other genres, you know. I was going to say, it's also Coogler's at a little bit more of an anointment point versus Craigor being fresh. I could see.

You can't have sinners and weapons nominated for Best Original Screenplay. It's too much. I agree. Too much. One of the other. I wonder if it's a bridge too far, but I also think Weapons has a stronger acting contender

than Sinners does. No, Sinners has the stronger acting contender. Who do you think's the... You think... The double MBJ. Yeah, he plays two people. The Oscars love that shit. And you don't think Amy Madigan's

couldn't get nominated? I mean, I would love to see that. Truly would love to say that. Wait, let me ask... We get a long season ahead of us. I think she... Did Ruth Gordon get nominated for Rosemary's baby? She won an Oscar, my friend.

That's why I'm saying. It's a crazy win. She won. So Amy Maddinger could get nominated as I would love to see it. I really think that performance is very special. I agree and I think it's sticky. And she's an Oscar nominee. When I was,

it's been a while from a lot. I think weapons, I don't think it's as. And Harris could yell at people for her. I don't think. He's a yellow. I don't think weapons is. They could set the Oscars together.

Arms cross, not applauding. Yes, exactly. Mean mugging. Looking like too grumpy cats. Yeah, iconic stuff from them. I don't think weapons is anywhere near as good as Rosemary's baby, obviously, but I do think it's kind of

one of the comics movies. I think like kind of pinnacle of Hollywood film maker. I think weapons as a horror film is, it's not crazy to say it's Rosemary's baby-esque. It's not wrong. And you know what's so funny is that this gal who we both

love, Julia Gardner, she was in the Rosemary's baby prequel, which nobody saw. She was in apartment 70, which I thought was pretty good. You saw it. I never saw it. I watched it. It was good. Should I watch it? I love her. it's one of those things where it's like it's directed by the person who did Relic

which is a movie I liked which is why I watched it and it's one of the things where number one you're like I wish this just wasn't a Rosemary's baby prequel right? It would be fun if this was just a horror movie set in an apartment building. Number two of it is obviously it'd be nice to see in that theater I saw it on fucking Paramount Plus

number three is it really it's not perfect but it has two or three in beautifully directed sequences that are so cool Diane Weiss plays the Ruth Gordon The cast of us. I'm watching it tonight. I'm watching it tonight.

But I love, if we're talking Julia Garner talk, I love that Australian movie. Now, Davidson's does not like the end of the hotel. We were talking right before record about the... But I love the movie. It's called the Hotel New Hampshire or something. I don't know what it's called.

The Royal Hotel Hotel, New Hampshire. It's very, very... The documentary is called Hotel Normandy, I think. I get the name confused. Hotel Rwanda? Yeah, it's based on the documentary Hotel for Dogs. By the way, the Yelp reviews of Hotel Rwanda are terrible.

We got to go. Salacious crumbies. is asleep. Well, no Wi-Fi. You know, that's no free Wi-Fi. Fenn's looking at his phone. Luckily we already recorded our ads, but I think Griffin has to record like a radio player or something. Thank you all for listening. Please

remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for more podcast. Intarable Cruelty? By the way, can I just say one thing? This is kind of funny. I'll make this so quick. Once in a blue moon, I go on the blank check

Reddit page. Normal place. I'm going to the bathroom. No, no, no, this is so quick. I don't care. All right, I'll just talk to the others. My man's about to take a number three. He's going to rub one out. Now, listen to this.

I will occasionally... He's going to do the sexual act. He's going to perform the sex act with the toilet paper. I will occasionally go on Reddit and look up myself, of course, obviously, and look up myself on the blank check Reddit page. Yes. And this is the comment that's always made... Many fans on the... No, no, no, no, no.

This is the comment made about me, Jordan High. Hoffman, an underrated guest. Now, that's an honor, but when will I be a rated guest? Why am I the- Jordan? Yeah. I'm dubbing you now. Blank Check's most rated guest. I would like to be rated.

That is your title from here on. I feel in life, this is my entire, everything I do, whether it's going to work for a company that then closes two weeks later after I promoted on this podcast, whether it's performing the sex act with my wife. Of course. It's always like, hey, that was better than I expected. You know, and I'd like for once to be expected to be okay. Sims, we have dubbed Jordan Blank Check's Most Rated.

You think I didn't hear that through you think that was quiet. I heard that in Queens. I will say, the way you come up often on the suburb is like once a month, some user will make a post that's asking the question that people ask once a month like clockwork. What's the best episode? What's the worst episode? What's the funniest moment?

Who's the best guest? What's the worst guest? right, these same things. And every time people do the what's the funniest moment, very often at the top of the list, and I'm quoting here, Jordan Hoffman screaming, your mother's cunt,

and David Sims responding, we are in a place of work. No, it's Betty said that. Oh, yes. I saw somebody, back in the audio, one of the readers or Redditors, what the hell you call them?

On New Year's Eve said, if you start, if you press play now on that episode, episode, I will shout your mother's cunt at midnight. And you could then usher in the new year on your mother's cunt. And what better way. Uh, thank you for being here, Jordan. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate and review and subscribe. I feel like I said this and then I got this rail. Now I'm resetting. Tune in next week for Intobor Cruelties. And as always, I just want to end with the mirror of the quote I started the episode with because I started with Billy Bob paraphrasing.

David's already left. Shalub. Yeah. Shalub it up. My friend calls masturbating a number three, by the way. That was the joke we made when you were in the bathroom. While you were doing it. We said you did the sex act with the toilet paper. Francis McDormann getting her leg shaved. I think she'd be nice to be married, too. Sure, yeah.

Listen, the Shaloo quote, which I do think is as much as an answer to this movie as the movie gives, is the more you look, the less you really know. It's a fact, a true fact. In a way, it's the only fact there is. Your mother's content. Oh, my God. Salacious. Speak from.

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

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